House Foreign Affairs Chair Has ‘Serious Questions’ Why Intel Community Didn’t Inform Trump Admin on Balloons

U.S. House Minority Leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) brief members of the media outside the West Wing of the White House on Oct. 16, 2019, in Washington. Alex Wong/Getty Images

Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) has concerns about the intelligence committee not alerting the Trump administration about previous Chinese balloons.

The lawmaker made his comments just before President Joe Biden’s 2023 State of the Union address on Feb. 7, indicating frustration at the way the administration has dealt with a known Chinese surveillance balloon making its way across the nation.

McCaul told The Epoch Times that he could not confirm whether there were three previous Chinese spy balloons over the United States. However, he said that the Trump administration’s national security team appeared to be “totally unaware” of any such event.

“I can only draw one conclusion that, if it happened, it certainly wasn’t at this altitude level, because it wasn’t visible to the naked eye like this one was … And if it did happen, it raises serious questions about our intelligence community, that if they had this information, why don’t they share it with the administration at the policy political level?”

The congressman went on to say that the balloon spotted  on Feb. 1 by individuals on the ground in Montana was “the most provocative act that we’ve seen come out of Communist China and really a shot across the bow and poke in the eye of the president.”

McCaul also commented on reports that China began testing balloons loaded with missiles. The Texas lawmaker said he was not surprised but that it was likely “very dangerous” and said President Joe Biden “interestingly” seemed to be “deflecting” on the issues surrounding the balloon.

The Epoch Times previously reported that House Speaker Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) was pushing for a “full briefing” for all members of Congress on the Chinese balloon that traveled across the country, as Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) revealed on Feb. 7.

Scalise said at a news conference that the House majority leader described the incident as a “national security threat” and a “test” from Beijing to America.

Just one day before that report, news broke that the Pentagon conceded that there was an “awareness gap” that caused a failure to detect 3 Chinese spy balloons during the Trump years.

The Epoch Times’s Andrew Thornebrooke reported that Air Force Gen. Glen VanHerck, who serves as commander of  U.S. Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), said that Chinese spy balloons previously went undetected on at least three occasions during the Trump administration.

“I will tell you that we did not detect those threats, and that’s a domain awareness gap,” VanHerck said during a press briefing on Feb. 6.