The latest on the suspected Chinese spy balloon

In this image provided by the US Navy, sailors assigned to Explosive Ordnance Disposal Group 2 recover a high-altitude surveillance balloon off the coast of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, on February 5.

Almost a week after a suspected Chinese spy balloon was shot down off the coast of South Carolina, we’ve begun to learn more details regarding the Defense Department’s thinking and plans to deal with the balloon. 

Two public Senate hearings regarding China and the balloon helped solidify the timeline of events and why officials made the decisions they did.

Those hearings, combined with classified briefings to the House and Senate from Pentagon, State Department and intelligence officials, left some lawmakers with more clarity — while others demanded more information about what exactly had happened. 

If you are just reading in, here are key things to know:

What we learned on Thursday: Melissa Dalton, assistant secretary of defense for Homeland Defense and Hemispheric Affairs, told lawmakers the balloon entered the US Air Defense Identification Zone over Alaska on January 28 before flying over Canada. It reentered continental US airspace three days later. 

President Joe Biden was briefed on the balloon the same day, and the Defense Department was “able to protect against PRC intelligence collection … since we knew where the balloon was.”

When the balloon was first spotted, it was not determined to have “hostile intent,” Lt. Gen. Douglas Sims, director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Senate Subcommittee on Appropriations of Defense. 

The official said there were no serious concerns about the balloon as it was over Alaska, because officials found that it would not impact aviation routes or present a significant intelligence gathering risk. When pushed on the military sites in Alaska, Sims said: “It was not near those locations and as we reconstruct the path, we are not concerned with intelligence gathering in Alaska.”

When the balloon continued on a path toward the lower United States, that assessment changed, Sims said. As a result, Biden asked the military for “kinetic courses of action.”

Ultimately, the military determined the risk of Chinese intelligence collection “was deemed to be low to moderate,” while the risk to people on the ground was “moderate to significant.”  

The military recommended shooting the balloon down over the water, which had three benefits, Dalton said: It allowed officials more time to observe the balloon and China’s capabilities, more time to determine ways to reduce the risk to civilians when it was shot down, and a better chance at recovering the balloon afterwards.

Biden was again briefed on the balloon on Feb. 3 regarding the military’s plan to shoot the balloon down. It was approved and Biden was provided “regular updates,” Dalton said.

Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the Biden administration “learned a thing or two” from the intelligence gathered on China’s balloon. “We made clear to PRC (People’s Republic of China) officials that the presence of this surveillance balloon was unacceptable, and along the way we learned a thing or two which you’ll hear in the classified briefing about the PRC’s use of the balloon,” she said.

It was discussed during the classified House briefing that the balloon could have been dispatched by the Chinese government without the knowledge of Chinese President Xi Jinping, sources familiar told CNN’s Manu Raju. Officials also said during the briefing that part of the concern with shooting the balloon down earlier was a fear that it would escalate military tensions with China.

Where things stand now: The FBI began investigating debris of the Chinese spy balloon after it arrived at their lab at Quantico, Virginia, on Monday. 

The FBI released photos on Thursday of agents processing the balloon debris.

What lawmakers are saying about the incident: Some lawmakers have been critical of the Biden administration’s response time and are asking for more transparency. Others have defended the administration’s decisions.

“They should have never let it into our sovereignty, they should have taken it another time,” House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said after the briefing. Rep. Adam Schiff, former chair of the House Intelligence Committee, told CNN after the briefing he’s “confident that the administration made the right judgement about when they shot it down.”

Senate Intelligence Committee chair Mark Warner, a Democrat from Virginia, said he still has questions about how the administration handled the suspected Chinese spy balloon and said while there were possible dangers of shooting it down, he does not think China would allow a surveillance asset in their airspace.

“While I understand the implications of the potential danger posed, I do wonder whether there was any reflection on what is the image left for Americans in the world, this balloon floating across the whole of the United States mainland,” he said.

Today’s Capitol Hill briefings: Administration officials from the Pentagon, State Department and intelligence community briefed lawmakers on Capitol Hill Thursday on the balloon, which has prompted criticism from Republicans over allowing it to float across the US before it was shot down off the Atlantic coast.

The officials told lawmakers that the US has assessed that little new intelligence was gleaned by the Chinese balloon operation because the Chinese appeared to stop transmitting information once the US learned of the balloon, in addition to US measures to protect sensitive intelligence from China’s spying operations, according to the sources.

The US also believes what they have recovered from the shot-down balloon is beneficial to US intelligence, the sources said.

CNN’s Jennifer Hansler, Kylie Atwood, Jeremy Herb and Haley Britzky contributed reporting to this post.

Sen. Steve Daines.

Senate Republicans and Democrats are divided over the Biden administration’s handling of the suspected Chinese spy balloon after a classified briefing by key officials on Thursday.

Many Senate Democrats were content with the explanation and strongly defended the administration’s actions, while most Republicans voiced frustrations with the answers provided and think the balloon should have been shot down before it entered the continental United States.

Sen. John Cornyn, a Republican from Texas, said he was “not satisfied” with the briefing and explanation from the administration, saying, “The fact that the president allowed this balloon to transit the United States, including some of our most sensitive national security infrastructure before he took measures to have it shot down.”

Sen. Steve Daines, a Republican from Montana who is in GOP leadership, echoed Cornyn’s frustration saying he still has “a lot of unanswered questions.”  

“On behalf of the people of Montana whose airspace was violated by this Chinese spy balloon I have a lot of unanswered questions,” Daines said, reiterating that the administration is still working on gaining further intelligence from the balloon. 

“There was nothing in there that I learned that would’ve said that we shouldn’t have shot it down when it was over Alaska,” added GOP Sen. Roger Marshall of Kansas, exiting the briefing.

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said he also believes the administration had opportunities and the “ability to bring it down”. 

Meanwhile, several Senate Democrats strongly defended the administration’s response.

“Everything I learned today confirms that the administration made the right decision,” said Connecticut Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy.

Asked about the GOP response out of the briefing differing from Democrats, with many saying the balloon could have been shot down sooner, Murphy chalked it up to a difference of opinion on collecting intelligence. 

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, a Democrat from New York and a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, echoed Murphy and Durbin saying she was “satisfied” with the administration’s handling of the balloon incident, but would not elaborate saying it was a classified briefing.  

Rep. Mike Gallagher speaks to CNN's Manu Raju.

Rep. Mike Gallagher, chair of the House Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, said that some of the United States’ reasons for not shooting down the suspected Chinese spy balloon sooner play “into the CCP’s narrative.”

“That’s buying into the CCP’s narrative, that us defending our own airspace and sovereignty is provocative,” the Wisconsin Republican said. “I don’t buy that.”

Asked about the idea that it could have endangered Americans and property to shoot down the balloon sooner, Gallagher pushed back.

“I have yet to see a convincing explanation for how shooting it down over the Aleutians would have endangered civilians,” he said, referring to the Aleutian Islands near Alaska.

Gallagher said that his committee is carving out a path that doesn’t intrude on House Armed Services’ and House Intelligences’ jurisdiction. 

“I think where we could play a unique role is sort of teasing out what this says about the malign behavior of the Chinese Communist Party and the way in which they’re trying to test us and our sovereignty,” he said. “So one of the most interesting unanswered questions right now is whether – maybe unanswerable – whether this was intentionally timed with Secretary Blinken’s visit. I mean, it would strike me as a big coincidence.”

The FBI released photos Thursday of agents processing the suspected Chinese spy balloon and materials recovered from the site where the US shot it down off the Atlantic coast.

The materials are currently being processed at the FBI facility in Quantico, Virginia.

FBI Special Agents assigned to the Evidence Response Team process material recovered from the High Altitude Balloon recovered off the coast of South Carolina. The material was processed and transported to the FBI Laboratory in Quantico, Virginia.

FBI Underwater Search Evidence Response Team (USERT) Members ready equipment to recover material from the ocean floor.

FBI Evidence Response Team Members aboard a Department of Defense vessel assigned to recover efforts off the coast of South Carolina.

An FBI Evidence Response Team Photographer captures images of recovered material.

New revelations about the balloon: The Biden administration has determined that the suspected Chinese surveillance balloon that traversed the United States last week was operating with electronic surveillance technology capable of monitoring US communications, according to a senior State Department official.

The balloon “was capable of conducting signals intelligence collection operations” and was part of a fleet that had flown over “more than 40 countries across five continents.”

CNN’s Jennifer Hansler, Kylie Atwood, Manu Raju, Jeremy Herb and Haley Britzky contributed to this report.

In this photo provided by Chad Fish, a large balloon drifts above the Atlantic Ocean, just off the coast of South Carolina, with a fighter jet and its contrail seen below it on Saturday, February 4.

In a very tense classified briefing meeting Thursday morning, several Republicans criticized the Biden administration’s handling of the suspected Chinese spy balloon, including conservatives Marjorie Taylor Greene, Matt Rosendale and Andy Ogles, according to sources familiar with the briefing.

Greene said that the Pentagon made the president look weak, prompting the briefers to try to lay out a detailed timeline of the actions, the sources said.

President Joe Biden gave the order to shoot down the balloon whenever the Pentagon felt it was safe to do so, sources said, and the Pentagon ultimately made the call on when that action was appropriate.

Some GOP lawmakers have raised pointed questions about why the Biden administration did not move to shoot down the balloon before it crossed down into the continental US – either while it was over Alaska or sooner.

Once it was over US territory, officials previously argued that the benefits of gathering additional intelligence on the balloon as it passed over far outweighed the risk of shooting it down over land.

In Thursday’s briefing, officials said they didn’t move earlier to shoot down the balloon in part over fears it could provoke an escalation of military tensions with China or even a military conflict. They said they were limited on what actions they could take given the protocols they have to follow in engaging militarily, they argued, according to similar sources.

The US has assessed that little new intelligence was gleaned from the balloon’s operation because the Chinese appeared to stop transmitting to the mainland once the US learned of the balloon, sources said. Also, the US has protocols to protect its sensitive intelligence in case of such spying operations and implemented those protocols.

Sources familiar with the briefings said it was discussed that the US believes that the order to send the balloon was dispatched by a part of the Chinese government without President Xi Jinping’s knowledge and that it is unclear what the motivation was.

Republican Sen. Mitt Romney told CNN he believes the US made the right decision to wait and shoot down the suspected Chinese spy balloon.

“I believe that the administration, the President, our military and intelligence agencies, acted skillfully and with care. At the same time, their capabilities are extraordinarily impressive. Was everything done 100% correctly? I can’t imagine that would be the case of almost anything we do. But I came away more confident,” Romney said Thursday after leaving a classified briefing on China.

Asked if he agreed with their decision to wait to shoot down the balloon, Romney said: “Yes.” 

Most Republicans have said the US should have shot the balloon down earlier before it entered the continental United States.

Rep. Michael McCaul, the chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said he is one of the Republicans who encouraged GOP leaders to change a Chinese spy balloon resolution so that it condemned China instead of the Biden administration, which was the original plan under consideration.

The resolution, which is a symbolic rebuke of the Chinese government and is not binding legislatively, passed the House unanimously on Thursday in a 419-0 vote.

It condemns “the Chinese Communist Party’s use of a high-altitude surveillance balloon over United States territory as a brazen violation of United States sovereignty.” 

It also calls on the Biden administration “to continue to keep Congress apprised by providing comprehensive briefings” on the incident. 

“I just felt that something of this level and importance of national security shouldn’t be a partisan issue,” McCaul added. “This is far more effective to send a unified message… That’s far stronger than that partisan debate on the floor, for what? What do we gain from that? You gain a lot more as being unified as Americans first.”

Democratic Sen. Jon Tester — who is up for reelection in 2024 in Montana — reiterated Thursday that the Biden administration is going to need to “justify” their actions in relation to the Chinese spy balloon.

He also said he thinks the administration “could be better” at being forthcoming with information on the balloon.

Tester, who is chairman of the Senate Defense Appropriations subcommittee, held an oversight hearing on the Chinese spy balloon earlier today and said he thinks it was a “good initial hearing” but a lot of dots that need to be connected and hopes that happens in today’s classified briefing. 

Before entering the all-senator classified briefing on Thursday, he said he hopes to find out what information they have so far, but also what their plan is “when it happens again.”

CNN's Manu Raju speaks to House Speaker Kevin McCarthy following a classified briefing.

After receiving a classified briefing, top Republican House leaders doubled down that the Biden administration should have acted earlier to shoot down the suspected Chinese spy balloon. 

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said it was wrong for the Biden administration to wait to shoot down the balloon. 

“They should have never let it into our sovereignty, they should have taken it another time,” McCarthy said.

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise held a similar position that they should have taken more “decisive action” earlier. 

Asked if he was concerned about any military escalation with China after the balloon was shot down, Scalise responded that the US should not be worried about China’s concerns.  

“China’s flying a spy balloon over American territory, we shouldn’t be concerned what China’s worried about with military tensions, we should be furious that China has so little respect for the sovereignty of the United States of America,” he said.