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Speaker of the House Mike Johnson criticized federal agencies for failing to come up with a thorough answer about the mysterious drones that have popped up around the country this past month and claimed if Donald Trump was in office he would have already solved it.
Emphasizing concerns about the drones potentially collecting intelligence or spying on Americans, Johnson insinuated on Fox and Friends on Wednesday that the Biden administration was brushing off concerns over the drones.
“Look, I’m the speaker of the House. I have the exact same frustrations that you do and all of us do. We don’t have the answers. The administration is not providing them,” Johnson said.
“This is why we need Donald J. Trump back in the White House, to bring a steady hand to the wheel and a strong commander-in-chief. He would have already had the answers he would have already delivered to the American people and certainly the members of Congress. So leadership matters,” he added.
The mystery over the cluster of nightly drones, that first appeared over areas of northern New Jersey in November, has captivated the public and lawmakers.
Residents in Ohio, Florida, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York, California and more have reported seeing similar drones flying above their communities.
Some have theorized that the drones are a form of foreign surveillance, others believe they could be searching for something and a select group has raised their own form of conspiracies around the drones.
President Joe Biden and national security officials have assured people that, while they do not know the drones’ origins, “nothing nefarious” is going on. They have ruled out theories that the drones have “a foreign nexus” or are a national security threat.
“We’re following this closely, but so far no sense of danger,” Biden told reporters on Tuesday.
But that has not settled any concerns – even among lawmakers.
Republican Representative Carlos Giménez of Florida told NewsNation on Tuesday he is most concerned that the government “hasn’t the faintest idea what’s going on with these drones”.
Giménez said the drones “pose a threat” because they can utilize artificial intelligence and be operated remotely.
On Sunday, Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota told CBS that the public needs “more transparency” from the government over the drones. She urged federal agencies to hold briefings with senators on the matter as well.
The House Intelligence Committee held a closed-door briefing on Tuesday, but that too resulted in no new information.
Democratic Representative Jim Himes of Connecticut told reporters after the meeting that federal officials repeatedly assured them they had no reason to believe the drones were breaking any laws.
