The House Foreign Affairs chairman is suggesting today that the ‘spy drones’ being seen over our military sites are coming from China, refuting the argument by the Biden administration that these drones are not adversarial.
Chairman Michael McCaul isn’t saying he knows this for a fact, but says China is really good at this and they have bought land near our military bases and that he believes they are likely the culprit behind some of these drones.
Here’s more from the New York Post:
House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Michael McCaul said Tuesday that he believes that some unidentified drones spotted above New Jersey and New York are “spy drones” from China — after Biden administration officials insisted many of the aircraft are innocent commercial aircraft.
“We want answers but the response I’m getting is we don’t know whose drones these are,” McCaul (R-Texas) told reporters before executive-branch officials offered a classified briefing to members of the House intelligence committee.
“I was with the NASA administrator, Bill Nelson, he said that these drones have been reported over military sites, military bases. I would not think those are friendly. I would think those are adversarial,” McCaul said.
Rep. Mike McCaul said Tuesday that he believes some mysterious drone sightings are evidence of Chinese espionage. Getty Images
“We need to identify who is behind these drones,” he said. “My judgment based on my experience is that those that are over our military sites are adversarial and most likely are coming from the People’s Republic of China.”
“I believe they’re spy drones and the PRC and communist China is very good at this stuff. We know they bought land around military bases. This would be very consistent with their policy over the past couple years,” McCaul added.
“We’re not getting answers and I think it’s because our government does not know who is behind them and that is very disturbing to me.”
“They seem to think that most of them are American-based commercial,” he went on. “It’s the ones over the military bases that i cant explain and they can’t either.”
Unidentified aircraft have been reported this month above New Jersey’s Picatinny Arsenal and the state’s Naval Weapons Station Earle — and on Sunday forced the temporary closure of Stewart International Airport in New York near Poughkeepsie.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has said that many of the drones are commercial or are actually fixed-wing aircraft — while the White House has said it doesn’t know what accounts for the apparent surge in sightings.
The FBI, FAA, Pentagon and Department of Homeland Security said in a joint statement Monday that there was little reason for concern.
Reps for the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, whose members on Tuesday received a closed-door briefing from the FBI, CIA and Office of the Director of National Intelligence on the drone sightings, did not respond to a request for comment.
It would not shock me if McCaul was exactly right about these drones. While our military bases aren’t the only thing we should be concerned about, there’s no telling what systems could be on these drones to collect intelligence and surveil us for weaknesses.
And it’s all happening before Trump comes into office. This can’t be a coincidence. I don’t want to be part of the growing hysteria, but the ones over military bases is concerning.
UPDATE: Here’s video of his comments…