HUFFPOST
WASHINGTON — U.S. officials were able to prevent the compromise of sensitive data from military installations as a suspected Chinese spy balloon flew overhead, President Joe Biden said Thursday.
“Because we knew its path, we are able to protect sensitive sites against collection,” Biden said. “We waited until it was safely over water, which would not only protect civilians but enable us to recover substantial components for further analytics.”
Biden spoke from an auditorium across an alley from the West Wing in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, in remarks that were announced only an hour earlier. He largely repeated information already put out by the Pentagon and by White House aide John Kirby.
Biden said the intelligence community is still assessing what the additional objects shot down last weekend actually were, but that “nothing suggests” they were related to the Chinese spy program or, for that matter, any other foreign government.
“I want to be clear, we don’t have any evidence that there has been a sudden increase in the number of objects in the sky. We’re now just seeing more of them partially because the steps we’ve taken to … narrow our radars,” he said.
U.S. air defense radar has historically watched for fast-moving airplanes and even faster ballistic missiles ― not slow-moving balloons.
