AP stealth edits its Chinese spy balloon report

The Associated Press (AP) appeared to stealth edit a major report on the Chinese spy balloon, which was the origin of the claim that two such balloons also entered US airspace during the Trump administration.

The AP first published the article on Saturday. The balloon was then shot down after floating for several days over the US. Deep into the report, the AP cited one unnamed Biden administration official who claimed that two similar incidents “happened twice during the Trump administration but [were] never made public.”

However, the AP article looked different on Sunday. This time, the claim that Chinese spy balloons entered the US during the Trump administration was sourced to multiple officials. These officials also claimed that it happened three times under Trump, not two.

“U.S. officials said Saturday that similar Chinese balloons transited the continental United States briefly at least three times during the Trump administration,” the updated report said.

There were no editor’s notes or other indications for readers that the article had been changed in such a key way.

Multiple senior Trump intelligence officials have said they had not been briefed on any such incidents and suspected they never occurred.

John Bolton, who served as national security adviser to President Donald Trump, told Fox News, “I don’t know of any balloon flights by any power over the United States during my tenure, and I’d never heard of any of that occurring before I joined in 2018.”

Former secretary of defense Mark Esper similarly told CNN, “I don’t ever recall somebody coming into my office or reading anything that the Chinese had a surveillance balloon above the United States.”

“I would remember that for sure,” he added.

Former secretary of state Mike Pompeo, former directors of intelligence John Ratcliffe and Ric Grenell, and former national security adviser Robert O’Brien all offered similar on-the-record denials of knowledge of any such incidents.

The AP did not respond to a request for comment in time for publication.