Top pols on both sides demand White House briefing on latest downed objects

Top congressional lawmakers from both sides of the political aisle criticized the Biden administration Sunday for not updating them on the two objects just shot down over Alaska and Canada.

Members of the Gang of Eight, which is comprised of Republican and Democratic leaders of the House and Senate and the chairs and ranking members of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, said they are still waiting for information about the Friday and Saturday shoot-downs. 

“This is particularly annoying about this administration,” Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio), chair of the House Intelligence Committee, told CNN’s “State of the Union.” “The Biden administration needs to stop briefing Congress through our television sets and actually come and sit down and brief us.

“What we’re seeing here is a number of announcements by the administration without any real information being given to Congress,” he said.

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Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said the Gang of Eight received an “extensive briefing” on the first Chinese spy balloon that was shot down Feb. 4 off the South Carolina coast but noted they haven’t gotten any information about the latest incidents. 

“Since then, of course, there’s been the shoot-down over Alaska and the shoot-down over the Yukon,” Himes said on NBC News’ “Meet the Press.” “Congress has been out of session, and so we have not been directly briefed on that. Our staffs have been kept informed.”

But even if aides have been briefed, Himes said he still has “real concerns about why the administration is not being more forthcoming with everything it knows.”

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Both Himes and Turner acknowledged that recovery crews may not have had time to gather a lot of data about the objects detected off Alaska and over Canada’s Yukon Territory yet.

“Part of the problem here is that both of the second and the third objects were shot down in very remote areas. So my guess is that there’s just not a lot of information out there yet to share,” Himes acknowledged.

Turner contrasted the quick shoot-downs of the unidentified objects Friday and Saturday with the allegedly delayed downing of the Chinese spy balloon and said he prefers the administration be “trigger-happy” when it comes to aircraft breaching US airspace.

President Biden was on the receiving end of bipartisan criticism for allowing the Chinese spy balloon to float over large parts of the country — as well as sensitive military sites — before destroying it over the Atlantic.

The White House has said it waited for the balloon to drift over water to shoot it down because of safety concerns with falling debris. 

“[White House officials] do appear somewhat trigger-happy, although this is certainly preferable to the permissive environment that they showed when the Chinese spy balloon was coming over some of our most sensitive sites,” Turner said.

Still, he said the White House has to be more transparent with members of Congress. 

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“I do think that there needs to be more engagement between the administration and Congress,” Turner said. “Probably they’re a little hesitant after the Chinese balloon fiasco, where they let it go across the country to great criticism, bipartisan and bicameral criticism from Congress.” 

US fighter jets downed the ​aircraft over the Yukon Territory on Saturday​ at the request of ​Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

The object floating in the waters off Alaska’s northern coast was shot down Friday.

Both objects were flying at an altitude of about 40,000 feet, which made them a threat to commercial air traffic, among other things.