House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer on Friday speculated on the contents of a suspected Chinese balloon sailing across the U.S. and slammed the Biden administration for being weak on the international stage for allowing it.
“I have concern this will be another example of the Biden administration’s weakness on the national scale,” Comer said Friday.
“You look at what happened in Afghanistan. That hurt the reputation of America’s military strength. That hurt the reputation of our commander in chief. And now we have China clearly playing games with the United States.”
The balloon “never should have been allowed” to cross over into the U.S., the Kentucky lawmaker said, since the federal government “doesn’t know what’s in that balloon.
“Is that bioweapons in that balloon? Did that balloon take off from Wuhan?
“This is very concerning,” Comer said. “Unless China is working with the Biden administration to help find some of those missing documents that are scattered all over the United States, then this is unacceptable and should not be allowed. And, again, another sign of weakness on the international stage by our commander in chief.”
China claims that the balloon was merely a weather research “airship” that had blown off course. The Pentagon rejected that out of hand — as well as China’s contention that the balloon, about the size of two school buses, was not being used for surveillance and had only limited navigational ability.
The balloon was detected over sensitive military sites in Montana but had moved eastward over the heartland of the central United States by midday and was expected to remain in U.S. airspace for several days, officials said.
President Joe Biden declined to comment on the matter when questioned at an economic event. Two 2024 reelection challengers, former President Donald Trump and Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and U.N. ambassador, said the U.S. should immediately shoot down the balloon.
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.
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