the biden administration to shoot down the balloon over the atlantic ocean. the federal aviation administration has issued a ground stop close airspace in north and south carolina until 2:45 p.m. eastern time. the balloon is currently floating over south carolina and moving southeast republican congressman anthony of the homeland security committee standing by with his reaction. but first lucas tomlinson is live at the white house with 30 tables unchecked details. good afternoon mike if you going to shoot down a chinese spy balloon over the atlantic that s exactly how you do it. you close airspace you launched fighters. that appears to be what happened are present biden spoke earlier indicated a decision had been made without offering specifics. [inaudible] earlier this morning on fox former defense secretary chuck said it s unlikely this bible it will make its way home. i do not have the pentagon is going to do with the president ultimately decides but once he gets out
will make its way home. i do not have the pentagon is going to do with the president ultimately decides but once he gets out over open waters i would be surprised if we would allow this balloon to just float back to china. of quick history both countries of course spy on each other for just over a month ago chinese fighter jet came just 1y plane flying over the south china sea as you can see here. back in 2006 and was accused china of stealing underwater drone was later returned into many pieces in a box. 2001 u.s. navy ep three spy plane is a chinese fire jet chinese islands for the crew for help for 11 days former defense secretary mark esper said this thing should be brought gently to exploit the information. captured the equipment to
we re going to find out when it started. i have been trying to get answers to questions and i found a lot of the answers have been inadequate. i have also found that some of the explanations i have gotten don t hang together. so in a sense i have more questions today than i did when i first started. you re not going to speculate, but there was spying. what does that mean that he just said? it could mean everything. it could also mean nothing. i think that s p the point. the hole there is so big you can back up 1,000 conspiracy trucks and fill them up. here is more of what he said. i think people have to find out what the government was doing during that period. if we re worried about foreign influence for the very same reason, we should be worried about whether government officials abuse their power and put their thumb on the scale. abuse their power and put their thumb on the scale. in a separate interview the wall street journal, barr appeared more certain. he said government
wall street journal, barr appeared more certain. he said government power was used to spy on american citizens. of course spy is a loaded term with nefarious connotations. but according to the fbi counter intelligence would be the proper term focussed on russian attempts to influence the election and infiltrate the trump campaign. george papadopoulos had relayed to a russian diplomat to help the campaign by releasing thousands of hacked democratic e-mails, which was alarming to the fbi and should be to everyone because they were already aware of the russian efforts to influence the election. according to reporting, they sent an undercover investigator to find out what pop dhe knew. he throws out the word spy and rolls on, which he s done now a few times since assuming the office of attorney general.