Fox News Reports Pentagon Blocked Chinese Spy Balloon From Collecting Data From Sensitive Sites With ‘Security Protections, Shields’
Fox News’s Senior National Security Correspondent Jennifer Griffin offered a comprehensive report on Monday as to why the Biden administration waited days to shoot down the Chinese spy balloon traversing the United States – and noted the measures the Pentagon took to “mitigate” any national security threats it posed.
Fox News anchor Gillian Turner introduced a segment on the balloon, asking for Griffin’s assessment as to “why they waited nearly a week to shoot down the Chinese spacecraft flying across the U.S….allow[ing] the spycraft to crisscross U.S. airspace for days.”
“They claim they wanted to shoot it down, to wait to shoot it down until it was over the Atlantic,” said Turner. “They said this allowed the U.S. to retrieve surveillance equipment without endangering people on the ground. Some senior military experts, though, warn the incident emboldened China’s president, Xi Jinping…Jennifer, where are the Navy’s recovery efforts at this hour?”
Griffin reported that she had just been on a press call with National Security adviser John Kirby, who said rescue divers have been able to recover some remnants of the balloon from surface waters, which were now heading to the FBI’s labs in Quantico for study.
She continued her report:
The debris field is about 15 football fields by 15 football fields, according to Kirby. The FAA has issued a new temporary flight restriction banning all aircraft from a 100 square mile box of airspace off the coast of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, where the Chinese spy balloon was shot down Saturday — until further notice.
The U.S. Navy is leading recovery efforts with the amphibious ship USS Carter Hall destroyer USS Oscar Austin and cruiser Philippine Sea, along with Navy divers. The recovery will be expedited because of the shallow water, we’re told. Let’s look back at the timeline of events. The Chinese surveillance balloon was launched from the Chinese mainland on January 21st.
It crossed into Alaska on January 28th. A senior U.S. defense official tells me it spent minutes, not hours, over the U.S. territorial waters near the Aleutian Islands off Alaska and then crossed into Canada. It entered the continental U.S. through Idaho on January 31st. President Biden gave the order to shoot it down when deemed safe to do so on Wednesday, February 1st, when briefed about the balloon by his national security team. The US military took the shot, one shot with an air to air missile known as a Sidewinder.
As soon as the balloon left the continental U.S. near South Carolina on Saturday. 6 minutes into its flight over the Atlantic Ocean, it was brought down by an F-22 fighter jet launched from Langley Air Force Base in Virginia. I’m told they estimated they had approximately 18 minutes to shoot it down after it left the US mainland and still remained over U.S. territorial waters before it entered international waters 12 miles off the coast.
“It’s illegal to shoot down anything outside of that 12-mile coastal range. That’s the reason I’m told they did not shoot it down near the Aleutians,” Griffin added, referring to calls on the right that the balloon should have been shot down earlier.
She also reported that a “senior defense official” had told her that U.S. intelligence had been able to gather intelligence on the balloon while it floated across the country, while also raising “security protections, shields over any sensitive sites.”
Kirby had made similar comments, Griffin noted, playing a clip of him saying that the U.S. government had taken “steps to mitigate whatever collection capability the balloon would have over our sensitive military sites,” about which he would not provide details but did say that they had sufficient time to take these protective actions.
“And we’ve just confirmed that U-2 spy planes were circling the balloon as it crossed across the continental U.S. We’ve just confirmed that with senior defense officials,” Griffin concluded.
Watch the full clip above via Fox News.
