WSJ: Pentagon Knew About Balloons During Trump

The Wall Street Journal reports:

A small circle of intelligence officials at the Pentagon during the Trump administration monitored a series of mysterious objects—now suspected to be balloons—but the incidents were never reported to the White House because it wasn’t clear what they were, former U.S. officials said.

Following the shootdown earlier this month of a Chinese high-altitude balloon, the Biden administration revealed these past incidents, but didn’t say where they had flown, and added that they likely went undetected by the previous administration.

Now it appears some intelligence officials at the Pentagon were aware of the incidents and harbored concerns that they were related to China, believing Beijing was using them to test radar-jamming systems over sensitive U.S. military sites. The data collected about the Trump-era incidents was limited to a basic assessment and therefore wasn’t shared more broadly within the government at the time.

Read the full article.