John Ratcliffe, the Former Director of National Intelligence, has spoken up to reject the various claims that a group of three Chinese spy balloons “transited” the United States throughout the presidency of Donald Trump.
These suspected Chinese balloons that went across the lower 48 states before being by an F-22 Raptor off the coast of the Carolinas this past Saturday represented an “unprecedented national security blunder of incalculable damage,” Ratcliffe stated this past Sunday during an interview with Fox News.
Ratcliffe was then asked by anchor Maria Bartiromo to give a response to what she claimed was the Department of Defense stating that three Chinese spy balloons made their way into U.S. airspace throughout the Trump administration, they were not shot down, and they were not made known to the disclose.
“It’s not true. I can refute it,” answered Ratcliffe. He stated that his view is mirrored by other officials from the Trump administration, including one former Defense Secretary Mark Esper, who claimed that he has no recollection of Chinese surveillance balloons crossing the skies over the nation.
This past Saturday, one senior U.S. defense official claimed that these Chinese government spy balloons “transited the continental United States briefly at least three times during the prior administration and once that we know of at the beginning of this administration, but never for this duration of time,” as reported by CNN.
Ratcliffe then doubled down on his statement that the American people refute the Biden administration’s claim for themselves.
“Do you remember during the Trump administration when photographers on the ground and commercial airline pilots were talking about a spy balloon over the United States that people could look up and see even with the naked eye and that the media that hated Donald Trump wasn’t reporting? I don’t remember that either because it didn’t happen,” he stated.
Trump himself also spoke out in denial via his personal social media platform this past Sunday.
“The Chinese Balloon situation is a disgrace, just like the Afghanistan horror show, and everything else surrounding the grossly incompetent Biden Administration,” stated Trump via Truth Social. “They are only good at cheating in elections, and disinformation — and now they are putting out that a Balloon was put up by China during the Trump Administration, in order to take the ‘heat’ off the slow moving Biden fools. China had too much respect for ‘TRUMP’ for this to have happened, and it NEVER did. JUST FAKE DISINFORMATION!”