Leaked documents reveal that U.S. officials were aware of up to four additional Chinese spy balloons, in addition to the one that flew over the continental U.S. and was shot down in February off the coast of South Carolina, according to a report on Friday from the Washington Post.
The Post report was based on documents allegedly leaked to a Discord chatroom by Jack Teixeira, a member of the Massachusetts Air National Guard, who was arrested on Thursday and charged on Friday with "unauthorized retention and transmission of national defense information and unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents," according to the Post.
One of the other balloons flew over a U.S. carrier strike group in the Pacific Ocean, and another crashed in the South China Sea, according to the documents.
The documents do not mention the launch dates of those balloons.
President Joe Biden drew much criticism from the GOP and former national security officials for not shooting down the Chinese spy balloon that traversed the U.S. in January and February, called Killeen-23 by U.S. intelligence agencies, soon enough.
It carried a "raft of sensors and antennas the U.S. government still had not identified more than a week after shooting it down," according to the Post.
Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the Biden administration "made an enormous mistake" which caused "global shame" in its response to these spy balloons.
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