White House faults Trump administration for not detecting Chinese spy balloons

Christian Datoc, White House correspondent for The Washington Examiner

National Security Council spokesman John Kirby slighted the Trump administration Monday for failing to detect China‘s spy balloon surveillance operation.

The United States has shot down four suspected Chinese spying devices in just over a week. The first balloon was shot down off the coast of South Carolina in early February, and the other three were downed over Alaska, Canada, and Lake Huron over the weekend.

“We were able to determine that China has a high altitude balloon program for intelligence collection that’s connected to the People’s Liberation Army,” Kirby told reporters at Monday’s White House press briefing. “It was operating during the previous administration, but they did not detect it. We detected it. We tracked it, and we have been carefully studying it to learn as much as we can.”