I don't know about you but I'm swelling with pride!
America is back, baby! Just like David French and Jonah Goldberg and David Frum promised!
The Chinese spy balloon that flew across the U.S. was able to gather intelligence from several sensitive American military sites, despite the Biden administration's efforts to block it from doing so, according to two current senior U.S. officials and one former senior administration official.
China was able to control the balloon so it could make multiple passes over some of the sites (at times flying figure-eight formations) and transmit the information it collected back to Beijing in real time, the three officials said. The intelligence China collected was mostly from electronic signals, which can be picked up from weapons systems or include communications from base personnel, rather than images, the officials said.
The three officials said China could have gathered much more intelligence from sensitive sites if not for the administration's efforts to move around potential targets and obscure the balloon's ability to pick up their electronic signals by stopping them from broadcasting or emitting signals.
Watch everyone pass the buck on commenting:
The National Security Council referred NBC News to the Defense Department for comment. The Defense Department directed NBC News to comments senior officials made in February that the balloon had "limited additive value" for intelligence collection by the Chinese government "over and above what [China] is likely able to collect through things like satellites in low earth orbit."
"Limited value." All intelligence has "limited value." No intelligence is perfect or complete.
But intelligence was gathered and relayed.
This is an empty statement. Our Military Experts are lying to us again.
All Experts have done for ten years is Lie With Authority.
And then they keep wondering: Why don't they believe us?
Fox's Deep State Stenographer Jennifer Griffin dutifully relays their lies. Though she manages the rare feat of expressing doubt at their claims.
U.S. officials who spoke to Fox News on Monday are downplaying the significance of intelligence that a Chinese spy balloon was able to capture from military installations earlier this year as it flew over the country.
The officials said they still stand by original statements that any signals or electronic intelligence the balloon gathered was of "limited intelligence value" and that measures were taken to mitigate Beijing's ability to collect data while the object was sailing above sensitive sites.
The assurances come following a report from NBC News this morning stating that the balloon was able to gather intel from numerous sensitive American military sites despite efforts from the Biden administration to prevent it from doing so.
The report was based on information from two current senior U.S. officials and a former senior Biden administration official, who claimed China was able to control the balloon to allow it to pass over the sites multiple times while transmitting information back to Beijing in real time.
NBC News, citing the three officials, reported that the intel China gathered was taken mostly from electronic signals coming from the sites, instead of images.
It also reported that the balloon could have gathered much more had the Biden administration not acted to move around possible targets and obscure the balloon's ability to capture electronic signals from the locations.
...
Foreign policy experts at the time told Fox News Digital that the balloon likely was able to send sensitive data to the Chinese Communist Party before its downing from the U.S. military.
The Pentagon has said it "acted immediately to protect against the collection of sensitive information" from the balloon. However, geopolitical experts said there is little reason to believe those efforts were successful, as the balloon almost certainly transferred surveillance data over to China as it flew over several military bases.
The Biden Administration's earlier claim that maybe the airship didn't relay its information back to his business partners in China was always an absurd lie. The entire media should have risen up to denounce such a farcical claim -- of course a spy airship equipped with its own rotors and navigation system would also have the very old technology of a radio, and given that we let the spy airship drift unmolested over our territory for a week, of course it had time to turn on the radio and send its intelligence payload back to Hunter's Chinese Handlers.
Of course this all happened.
And yet Biden lied and claimed it hadn't, and everyone in the corrupt propaganda media nodded and said, "Yes, it is most likely the spy airship lacked a radio to transmit its intelligence."