Did Trump’s defense secretary KNOW Chinese spy balloons flew over US but ‘decide not to tell him’?

A senior Republican on Monday said that the Pentagon may have been aware of Chinese balloons drifting across the country during Donald Trump‘s time in office, but could have kept the information from the White House because of the president’s reputation for ‘provocative’ and ‘aggressive’ action.

The Biden administration has been under fire for taking days before deciding to shoot down a Chinese spy balloon.

But defense officials have since briefed reporters that similar balloons were spotted under the previous administration without any action being taken.

The result has been a string of Trump officials denying any knowledge of such incidents, saying they only came to light after they had left office.

Rep. Mike Waltz of Florida, who sits on the House Armed Services Committee, offered an explanation for the differing tales, saying that his office had been briefed on the details and that it had happened over Florida, Texas and elsewhere. 

In total, there were five balloons spotted during Trump’s term. At least one flew over portions of Texas, two flew over Florida during the Trump administration with additional sightings near the Pacific Islands of Hawaii and Guam. Three have been seen during Biden’s presidency including near Hawaii, the one that was shot down this weekend and another over South America

‘We have more detailed questions but what’s unclear … and this is the key point: Did the Pentagon under the Trump administration brief the Trump White House and give them the option to take action, or did they decide not to brief them for whatever reason,’ he said.

‘And there’s some speculation — I’ve talked to Trump White House officials over the weekend — that the Pentagon deliberately did it because they thought Trump would be too provocative and too aggressive.’

He said questions needed to be answered by the general who spent two years as Trump’s secretary of defense.

‘One person I’m waiting to hear from, that we haven’t heard from in that whole list, is former Secretary of Defense Gen. Mattis, who was the secretary during this time period,’ he said.

‘What did he know and what did he decide to pass on and brief to the president?’

Mattis was Trump’s first secretary of defense before resigning in protest at the decision to withdraw American troops from Syria. 

On Saturday, the same day a U.S. Air Force warplane shot down a drifting balloon off the coast of South Carolina, a Pentagon spokesman told reporters that ‘surveillance balloons transited the continental United States briefly at least three times during the prior administration.’

It provided fodder for Democrats to defend President Joe Biden against criticisms of dithering, as Trump himself said he would have shot interloper down earlier. 

Republican Rep. Mike Waltz said Jim Mattis had to answer questions about how much he knew about Chinese spy balloons crossing the U.S. when he was Trump’s defense secretary 

Jim Mattis was Donald Trump’s secretary of defense before resigning at the end of 2018

But a string of senior Trump national security officials said they had been unaware at of any incursions at the time, including the former president himself.

Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, former Defense Secretary Mark Esper, former acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller, were among the figures who rejected the claim or expressed doubt that China could have breached U.S. air space without their knowledge.

‘I don’t ever recall somebody coming into my office or reading anything that the Chinese had a surveillance balloon above the United States,’ Esper told CNN. ‘I would remember that for sure.’

Former National Security Adviser John Bolton told Fox News: ‘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.

‘I can say with 100 percent certainty: Not during my tenure.’