PolitiFact investigated several misleading and false claims that have been spreading online about the Chinese spy balloon.
The claim itself is largely accurate, but it overlooks some key details and is being used in a manner that distorts the program’s purview.
Derek Grossman, a senior defense analyst at the Rand Corp., told PolitiFact that detection, tracking and operations against the Chinese spy balloon are handled primarily by the North American Aerospace Defense Command and the U.S Northern Command, not by the Justice Department. "The Trump administration’s task force most likely would not have covered the surveillance balloon, but if it did, then only in the context of China’s broader espionage efforts after being briefed by NORAD/NORTHCOM," Grossman said.
But this claim appears to refer to the China Initiative, a Justice Department effort that was launched in 2018 under the Trump administration. In February 2022, the Justice Department announced it was ending the program.
But it quickly came under criticism from folks in academic communities and elsewhere for drifting from its original mission. Some people in the Asian American and Pacific Islander communities said the initiative contributed to bias as prosecutions included cases against researchers and academics — many of Chinese ancestry — accused of failing to disclose ties with China when applying for grants.
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