Trump Says It Never Happened

(RightIsRight.co) – Former President Donald Trump has denied allegations that Chinese spy balloons flew over US territory while he was in office.

Trump’s comments came after, on Saturday, the US military shot down a Chinese espionage apparatus off the coast of South Carolina after the balloon flew unhindered over the mainland United States.

Reports citing Pentagon officials claimed that three Chinese spy balloons flew over parts of the US on the former president’s watch. They also said another such device crashed in the Pacific Ocean near Hawaii four months ago, The New York Post reported.

On Sunday, Fox News said it had verified reports that one Chinese spy balloon flew over Florida and Texas during Trump’s White House term.

“This never happened. It would have never happened,” the 45th president of the United States reacted in comments to Fox News Digital.

He declared that Communist China “respected us greatly” while he was in the White House.

“And if it did, we would have shot it down immediately,” added Trump, who is presently the only official presidential candidate in the 2024 election.

He accused “incompetent” Biden officials of spreading “disinformation” by alleging that any espionage balloons of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) spied on the United States during his term.

Later on Sunday, Fox quoted a senior official of the Biden administration who said the fact that such balloons flew over America was revealed only after Trump left the White House.

“US intelligence, not the Biden administration, [determined] PRC government surveillance balloons transited the continental US 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,” the source said.

“This information was discovered after the [Trump] administration left. They went undetected,” the Biden official added.

“Two things can be true at once: This happened, and it wasn’t detected,” the source elaborated.

Trump’s former National Security Adviser, John Bolton, who isn’t on good terms with the former president, also rejected claims that Chinese spy balloons flew over the US at the time.

“I don’t know of any balloon flights by any power over the United States during my tenure, and I’d never heard of any of that occurring before I joined in 2018. I haven’t heard of anything that occurred after I left, either,” Bolton said.

He urged President Joe Biden’s administration to “tell Congress” about any “specific examples.”

“If a balloon had come up, we would have known. Someone in the intelligence community would have known, and it would have bubbled up to me to brief the president,” commented former acting Director of National Intelligence Ric Grenell.

“I can’t rule out that things occurred that I was unaware of, but I do think something like this, I would have been aware of,” reacted former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for East Asia Heino Klinck.

“I don’t ever recall somebody coming into my office or reading anything that the Chinese had a surveillance balloon above the United States. I would remember that for sure,” declared former Defense Secretary Mark Esper, who also isn’t on good terms with Trump.