During an interview aired on Friday’s edition of the Fox Business Network’s “Maria Bartiromo’s Wall Street,” Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-TN) stated that he was stunned that a senior Pentagon official disclosed that there were Chinese spy balloon flights under the Trump administration because doing so dangerously revealed a lack of capability that caused those flights to go undetected in an attempt to deflect blame from the Biden administration’s handling of the balloon and that doing so “for political purposes,” demonstrates the Biden administration’s “weakness and their tendency just to look to political excuses and to deflection.”

Hagerty stated, [relevant remarks begin around 3:55] “I’ll tell you what else shocked me, Maria, to hear this Pentagon — ‘a senior official’ from the Pentagon, an unnamed official, coming out and trying to deflect blame, to say that this had happened in the Trump administration. Again, if it did happen, it went undetected. This is seriously classified information. It reveals a lack of capability That should have never been used in that manner. Using classified information in that manner for political purposes, again, reflects this administration’s weakness and their tendency just to look to political excuses and to deflection.”

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