Trump and senior national security officials refute claims that Chinese spy balloons flew across the US under the last administrator

EXCLUSIVE: Former President Trump and a number of his senior national security and defense officials have denied claims by Biden administration officials that Chinese spy balloons briefly flew over the continental United States during the Trump administration, saying it “never happened” .

On Saturday, a Defense Department spokesman said Chinese spy balloons flew briefly over the United States at least three times during the last administration.

But Trump and his officials said that didn’t happen and criticized the Biden administration for spreading misinformation.

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“It never happened. That would never have happened,” Trump told Fox News Digital on Sunday morning, adding that Beijing had “a lot of respect for us” under him.

“This has never happened to us under the Trump administration, and if it did, we would immediately shoot it down,” Trump said. “This is disinformation.”

Former President Donald Trump.
(SAUL LEB/AFP via Getty Images))

Trump said the Biden administration is spreading it because “they look so bad, as usual.”

“They are incompetent,” he said.

Trump’s former White House National Security Adviser, U.S. Ambassador. John Bolton told Fox News Digital he had never heard of anything like it during his tenure.

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“I am not aware of any ballooning of any authority over the United States during my tenure and I never heard of it before joining us in 2018,” Bolton said. “I didn’t hear anything about what happened after I left either.”

Bolton said that if the Biden administration has “concrete examples, they should report it to Congress.”

He added: “I can say with 100% certainty that not during my tenure.”

FILE – In this Sept. 30, 2019 file photo, former National Security Adviser John Bolton gestures during a speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. On Saturday, June 20, 2020, a federal judge ruled that former national security adviser John Bolton could publish his candid book. The Trump administration tried to block the publication due to concerns that classified information might be exposed. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, File)
(AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, File)

And an ambassador. Robert O’Brien, who was also the White House National Security Adviser from 2019 to 2021, told Fox News Digital he was not aware of anything like that.

“Definitely, I was never briefed on the matter,” O’Brien said, telling Fox News Digital that his team, which included Matt Pottinger, who served as deputy national security adviser, and Allison Hooker, who served as senior adviser for Asia were also not informed about these activities.

National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien speaks to reporters before boarding Air Force One (AP)

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Former Acting Director of National Intelligence Rick Grenell, who led the intelligence community at the start of the COVID pandemic, told Fox News Digital that he has done “one of the largest intelligence studies of China, their espionage and the origins of COVID” during his tenure.

“It never came up,” he said. “If the balloon had risen, we would have known. Someone in the intelligence community would have known about this, and I would have had to brief the president.”

Richard Grenell The U.S. Ambassador to Germany takes part in the “Rally for Equal Rights at the United Nations (protest against anti-Israel bias)” outside the Human Rights Council at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, March 18, 2019. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse

Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for East Asia Heino Klink told Fox News Digital that he was also unaware of this.

“I can’t rule out that things happened that I didn’t know about, but I think that I would have known about something like that,” Klink said.

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Former Trump Defense Secretary Mark Esper also said he was never told about Chinese observation balloons over the United States during his time at the Pentagon.

“I never remember anyone walking into my office or reading anything about the Chinese having a surveillance balloon over the United States,” Esper said during an appearance on CNN. “I would definitely remember that.

In this image provided by the Department of Defense, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper speaks to members of the media during a press conference to discuss the Department’s efforts to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic at a Pentagon briefing in Washington, Monday, March 23. 2020 (Army Staff Sergeant Nicole Mejia/Department of Defense via AP)

And former Acting Secretary of Defense Chris Miller, who previously served as director of the National Counterterrorism Center, also told Fox News he never heard of a Chinese spy balloon while he was in government.

“Never heard a whisper and I have to think that if something like this happened it would be a huge problem,” Miller told Fox News Digital. “No. Absolutely never heard of anything like that while I was in government or in the Pentagon.”

At this point, it is unclear whether these actions took place, or whether the military leadership chose not to inform the civilian leadership of the matter.

The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a Fox News request for comment.

The balloon was shot down on Saturday off the coast of South Carolina after several days of flying over the continental United States.

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Senior Defense Department officials said Saturday was the first time the US had been able to shoot down a balloon over water. Officials could have shot down the balloon over Montana and the northern US states, but out of great caution chose to wait until it was over water to prevent any risk to civilians or civilian property.

Efforts are underway to rebuild the armed forces and the intelligence community. Fox News has learned that the FBI will play a role in the recovery effort, and the wreckage could be taken to Quantico for inspection.