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Pentagon needs to explain whether parts of Chinese spy balloon were made in the US, Republicans say: Senators “disturbed” by English writing and Western components on surveillance aircraft.
- The State Department and the Pentagon briefed lawmakers on Thursday.
- But some Republican senators said they didn’t get answers to key questions.
- They said officials had yet to say whether the balloon included US components.
Republican senators say the Biden administration still has questions to answer about the Chinese spy balloon after officials brushed off questions about whether some of its components were made in the US.
Sens. Josh Hawley and Dan Sullivan made the claims after a classified briefing by Pentagon and State Department officials.
It comes as the administration remains under fire for what critics said was a faltering response to the spy craft.
And on Friday, officials revealed that a second unidentified object had been downed, this time over Alaska.
Earlier, Sullivan told reporters that he still had doubts about the first balloon.
Republican Sens. Dan Sullivan of Alaska and Josh Hawley of Missouri said Biden administration officials had not responded to questions about whether there were American components in the Chinese spy balloon.
The Chinese spy balloon was allowed to drift across the US before US planes shot it down.
“American companies should not help build spy satellites that are used against their own citizens,” Sullivan said after the briefing.
“Maybe there’s nothing to say about it, but somebody asked about it, and nobody, nobody at that briefing said, ‘Oh, it’s not a problem.'”
Biden escalated the controversy Thursday by making light of the entire episode.
In an interview with Noticias Telemundo, he said that he does not regret having knocked him down before.
“It’s not a major gap,” Biden said. ‘I mean, look, it’s totally… it’s a violation of international law. It is our airspace.
And once it enters our space, we can do whatever we want with it.
The 200-foot-tall balloon, and its payload of electronic devices, was shot from the air by a US fighter jet off the coast of South Carolina on February 4.
As the US military recovers what it can from the wreckage, Republicans, and some Democrats, have kept up a barrage of questions.
Hawley said the briefing had not generated enough responses and said he remained concerned about the American components on the balloon.
China maintains claims that the ship was simply a stray weather balloon, but US intelligence linked the balloon to a surveillance program tied directly to China’s main military force, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).
Sailors assigned to Explosive Ordnance Disposal Group 2 recover a suspected Chinese high-altitude surveillance balloon that was shot down by the United States over the weekend over US territorial waters off the coast of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
“I don’t think there’s a definitive answer on that,” he told Fox News Digital. ‘But… the question was asked by a senator and, you know, I think that’s a very, very disturbing possibility.’
Questions arise after it emerged this week that the balloon had equipment capable of monitoring American communications.
“It had multiple antennas to include an array likely capable of collecting and geolocating communications,” the official said.
“It was equipped with solar panels large enough to produce the power needed to operate multiple active intelligence-gathering sensors.”