Republican John Cornyn shoots down Trump balloon denialism — and says he believes the Air Force

WASHINGTON — Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) denied that a spy balloon from China flew over the United States at least three times during President Donald Trump's administration. Greene isn't on the intelligence committee or part of the "Gang of 8," but she's certain that the Pentagon is lying about the U.S. Air Force's report on the 2019 balloon.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) told Raw Story that he's not aligning himself with his fellow Republicans' conspiracy theories.

While he called the spy balloon "disturbing," he explained that they would receive a briefing Tuesday ahead of the State of the Union address.

"The only good thing to come out of this is to highlight how aggressive the Chinese are at espionage and we know they will stop at nothing. But this is kind of like a thumb in the eye. Obviously, if people don't understand TikTok and some of the cyberattacks of the Office of Personnel Management a few years ago, where millions of security applications were sucked up. But they do understand this. So, hopefully, it'll encourage greater vigilance not only by the American people but by Congress."

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"This seems to me to be a huge mistake but it also raises the issue of why there were other balloons transiting the United States that the previous administration didn't know about and wasn't told about," Cornyn added.

"It didn't happen!" Greene told reporters about the balloon. "It did not happen. President Trump said it didn't happen, people in his former administration said it didn't happen, people who didn't even like President Trump from his former administration said it didn't happen -- and then all of a sudden, poof, like a spy balloon has happened? It's crazy!"

The Air Force assessment report said that the 2019 incident wasn't revealed to the White House until after Trump was out of office.

With additional reporting by Matt Laslo