Sen. Grassley. (file photo)
Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley is renewing his call for the Biden administration to disclose all it knows about the high-altitude Chinese balloon that flew across the U.S. in February.
NBC is reporting today that the spy balloon — which China claimed was a weather balloon blown off course — was able to gather intelligence from several U.S. military sites and transmit it back to Beijing in real time.
“What the United States needs to do as a result of that balloon,” Grassley says, “we need to know everything that we know about that balloon and Congress needs a briefing on that.” The report says the balloon managed to make multiple passes over some sites, including flying in a figure-eight, before a U.S. fighter jet shot it down off the South Carolina coast.
Grassley says there are already clear laws dictating how our airspace is not to be violated. Grassley says, “The action that Congress needs to take in response to this, but several other things that China is doing, is to build up our military which is losing ground against China.”
A total of four balloons were shot down during February, including two near Alaska and a third over Lake Huron. Grassley says America needs to show China and the world our strength and that we’ll defend our borders — and our allies.
“A strong military is the best tool of peace,” Grassley says, “to be prepared to ward off any actions that China may be taking in that part of the world that threaten countries that we have military alliances with.” At the urging of Congress, Grassley says the U.S. is also pushing to pull manufacturing out of China and relocate it in the U.S.