https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/3853310-why-trump-officials-were-unaware-of-chinese-spy-balloons/
by Brett Samuels - 02/11/23
A senior Pentagon official told reporters last week that Chinese
government surveillance balloons hovered over the continental U.S. “at
least three times” during the Trump administration, and one additional
time at the beginning of the Biden administration.

Since that disclosure, a slew of former Trump administration officials
who worked in the intelligence community have uniformly said they were
unaware of Chinese spy balloons hovering over the U.S. at any point
during the last administration.

“I don’t ever recall somebody coming into my office or reading anything
that the Chinese had a surveillance balloon above the United States,”
Mark Esper, who served as Defense secretary from July 2019 through
November 2020, said on CNN last week.

Kellogg, who briefly served as acting national security adviser to
Trump, said he was unaware of the sightings, as did John Bolton, who
spent roughly a year in the role.

Kellogg even suggested there should be congressional hearings on how the sightings could have happened without national security officials in the
Trump White House being notified.


https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-02-06/us-didn-t-know-about-chinese-balloons-during-trump-until-later
By Jenny Leonard and Jennifer Jacobs February 5, 2023
Chinese surveillance balloons flew over the continental United States at
least three times during the Trump years, according to a senior
administration official, but key details about the incursions weren’t
widely known until after Joe Biden took office.

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/02/05/trump-officials-deny-chinese-spy-balloons-00081257
By Alexander Ward and Lara Seligman 02/05/2023
Biden admin offers to brief Trump officials on past Chinese spy balloon incursions
Officials in the last administration denied that the airships had flown
over the U.S. on their watch.

Still, it helps explain why five senior Trump administration officials
POLITICO spoke with on Sunday said they were never told of such
incidents occurring when they were in office. “This never happened. It
would have never happened,” Trump told Fox News on Sunday.
And how much credibility has that got? None.

--[Apparently none of these 5 senior trump officials would go on the
record.]

Some officials did speak in generalities, however. DoD tracks “hundreds”
of balloons every day, but they are typically not deemed a threat. Their presence close to or over the United States would not be brought to the attention of senior leaders unless their behavior was “completely out of
the ordinary, like this one,” said one senior Pentagon official.


This is 5, not "everyone", as trader phrased it. Maybe he can find more,
but since we don't have any names, we won't know if they are different
people or the same. More importantly, they are only saying they
weren't told, not that it never happened.

--
I think you can tell, but just to be sure:
I am not a lawyer.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)