Lankford, Rubio, Wicker Call Out Biden for Sidestepping Spy Balloon Inquiry

OKLAHOMA CITY, OK – Senator James Lankford (R-OK) along with Senators Roger Wicker (R-MS), ranking member on the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Marco Rubio (R-FL) vice chairman on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, along with 15 of their colleagues sent a letter to President Biden calling out a continued lack of transparency related to the takedown of a Chinese spy balloon in February.

The letter follows numerous efforts from Senate Republicans to receive a public accounting of the Biden Administration’s assessment of actions taken prior to and following the takedown of the Chinese spy balloon.

The Senators expressed their growing frustration with the Biden Administration for failing to confront the China challenge.

“In your State of the Union address this year, you promised the American people that you would protect the United States from the PRC’s threats to our sovereignty. While four months have passed since a Chinese surveillance balloon was allowed to fly across the United States, your administration has yet to provide the American people a full accounting of how this spy platform was allowed to traverse across sovereign US territory, what the balloon carried, and what it collected during its mission,” the Senators wrote. “Your administration has also not taken appropriate steps to hold the PRC accountable for this flagrant violation of US sovereignty. As such, we urge you to immediately direct all relevant administration officials to release information, as appropriate, to the American public regarding the Chinese spy balloon.”

The Senators also observed the growing belligerence of China since the spy balloon was identified in US sovereign airspace, and maintain that the behavior has been incentivized by the United States’ willingness to be coerced into silence.

“In addition to deploying a spy platform into US territory, the PRC has conducted dangerous maneuvers against US aircrafts in the South China Sea and US ships navigating international waters, and continues to support Russia’s brutal war against Ukraine, harass American companies operating in China, commit egregious human rights violations, all while threatening a free and democratic Taiwan,” the Senators wrote. “We note with grave concern how, in a recent report in The New York Times, officials in your administration acknowledged that a May 2023 PRC malware attack against Guam was “part of a vast Chinese intelligence collection effort that spans cyberspace, outer space and, as Americans discovered with the balloon incident, the lower atmosphere.” It is time that your administration fully exposes Beijing’s efforts to collect intelligence against the United States and the threats posed by such activities. As such, we urge you to release, to the American people, all appropriate information that the United States has collected regarding the Chinese spy balloon.”

Joining Lankford, Rubio, and Wicker are Senators Jim Risch (R-ID), John Cornyn (R-TX), Susan Collins (R-ME), and Jerry Moran (R-KS) from the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, in addition to, Senators Deb Fischer (R-NE), Tom Cotton (R-AR), Mike Rounds (R-SD), Joni Ernst (R-IA), Dan Sullivan (R-AK), Kevin Cramer (R-ND), Rick Scott (R-FL), Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), Eric Schmitt (R-MO), Ted Budd (R-NC), and Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) from the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Bill Hagerty (R-TN).

Lankford is a member on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. 

Read the full letter here or below. 

Dear Mr. President:

We write to express our deep concern with the lack of transparency from your Administration over the information it has collected regarding the surveillance platform that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) deployed over our country.

In your State of the Union address this year, you promised the American people that you would protect the United States from the PRC’s threats to our sovereignty. While four months have passed since a Chinese surveillance balloon was allowed to fly across the United States, your Administration has yet to provide the American people a full accounting of how this spy platform was allowed to traverse across sovereign US territory, what the balloon carried, and what it collected during its mission. Your Administration has also not taken appropriate steps to hold the PRC accountable for this flagrant violation of US sovereignty. As such, we urge you to immediately direct all relevant Administration officials to release information, as appropriate, to the American public regarding the Chinese spy balloon.

The People’s Republic of China, under the control of the Chinese Communist Party, has only increased its brazen threats to our national security. In addition to deploying a spy platform into US territory, the PRC has conducted dangerous maneuvers against US aircrafts in the South China Sea and US ships navigating international waters, and continues to support Russia’s brutal war against Ukraine, harass American companies operating in China, commit egregious human rights violations, all while threatening a free and democratic Taiwan.

We note with grave concern how, in a recent report in The New York Times, officials in your Administration acknowledged that a May 2023 PRC malware attack against Guam was “part of a vast Chinese intelligence collection effort that spans cyberspace, outer space and, as Americans discovered with the balloon incident, the lower atmosphere.” It is time that your Administration fully exposes Beijing’s efforts to collect intelligence against the United States and the threats posed by such activities.

As such, we urge you to release, to the American people, all appropriate information that the United States has collected regarding the Chinese spy balloon. In particular, we note that the Financial Times reported last April that “China is refusing to let US Secretary of State Antony Blinken visit Beijing over concerns that the FBI will release the results of an investigation into the downed suspected Chinese spy balloon.” We therefore call on you to stand up to Beijing’s efforts to coerce the United States into silence on the PRC’s violation of US sovereignty and to release the FBI’s findings on the PRC’s spy balloon immediately.

Furthermore, we encourage you to review all options to firmly respond to, and deter, the PRC’s significant violations that threaten American national security and interests.  Beijing continues to test US resolve and tarnish US credibility—we must respond with strength, or risk further aggression from America’s adversaries.

Thank you for your attention to this timely matter. We look forward to you reply.

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