There was not a “shred of intelligence” shared among senior government officials suggesting that a Chinese spy balloon flew or was going to fly across the United States during former President Donald Trump’s administration, according to a former adviser to the administration.

Kash Patel, who served as the Pentagon’s chief of staff to Acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller under Trump, made the comments shortly after a number of senior officials in the Biden administration claimed that Chinese regime surveillance balloons entered U.S. airspace during Trump’s tenure.

Trump has denied those claims, stating that it “never happened.”

“As an individual who helped create, as the deputy DNI, the presidential daily briefing, the most sensitive intelligence collection that we provide to the president, United States, and the Cabinet Secretaries, I can tell you without equivocation that during my tenure, there was not one shred of intelligence that came across that showed that even the possibility of a balloon from the Chinese Communist Party or otherwise was going to cross the territorial waters of the United States of America,” Patel told The Epoch Times’ Jan Jekielek on this week’s episode of his “Kash’s Corner” podcast.

On Feb. 8, Pentagon spokesman Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder claimed that new intelligence showed China had been conducting surveillance across America for “several years.”

Ryder, during a press briefing, also claimed that there had been at least four previous spy balloon incursions over the United States, three of which he said occurred during the Trump administration and one during the Biden administration.

Ryder then corrected himself to state that a second balloon was discovered during the Biden administration after China this week confirmed that another balloon that was spotted over Latin America also belonged to the nation.

Patel said he doesn’t buy the Pentagon’s narrative regarding what it says is a “subsequent intelligence analysis” regarding the alleged previous balloon incursions into America.

“What do you mean, you ‘believe they happened’? Then you mean you detected them and failed to tell the secretary of defense, the director of national intelligence, the director of the FBI, the attorney general, the president of the United States, the vice president, and so on? That would be a strategic failure of epic proportions from our chain of command,” Patel said.

The United States shot down the first surveillance balloon at 2:39 p.m. Eastern time on Feb. 4 after it was seen making its way across the Carolinas and approaching the Atlantic coast, according to defense officials.

While the Biden administration has confirmed that the balloon flew over sensitive military sites, it has stopped short of stating exactly which sites they were.

Beijing, meanwhile, has rejected those assertions, claiming instead that the balloon was a civilian meteorological balloon that had been blown off course and just happened to fly over sensitive military sights.

China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Monday went so far as to accuse the United States of “an obvious overreaction and a serious violation of international practice.”

Patel said there is no doubt the downed balloon, as well as second balloon China claimed, were being used to spy on the United States.

“Even though the Chinese Communist Party came in and said it was a weather collection apparatus, anyone and everyone knows that’s a complete farce,” Patel said. “Those balloons serve a specific purpose, in my opinion, when they traverse our entire continental United States of America, starting in Alaska.”

“They are looking at national security installations across our country. From Alaska to Montana, down to Carolina, we have military bases in every single one of those locations. We have other facilities, intelligence and otherwise, in every single one of those locations. And I bet you the CCP knows that,” he said.

“The trajectory of this balloon—it’s not like you just light it, or it’s not like you just fill it with helium and you set it on its way—it is actually controlled by human beings, probably from somewhere in mainland China as to its direction and where it’s going next.”

Patel said the balloon was directed with a strategic purpose, which is why the governors of the states under the balloon’s path were so concerned.

Patel added that the latest events were a “victory” for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) over America’s national security apparatus.

The Epoch Times has contacted the White House for comment.

Trump told Fox News on Sunday that the Chinese regime “respected us greatly” under his leadership, adding that a CCP surveillance balloon never entered the United States during his administration and that if one had, his government would have immediately shot it down.