I WAS SPECULATING ABOUT THIS EARLIER, AND NOW: Top Republican claims Trump’s Defense Secretary James Mattis may have KNOWN that Chinese spy balloons flew over the U.S. but opted not to tell the president because he was ‘too provocative and aggressive.’

That would be a serious dereliction of duty on Mattis’s part if true. Between that and Milley reportedly refusing Biden’s order to shoot the balloon down on Wednesday, do we have civilian control of the military anymore?

What did Mattis know, and if he knew, why didn’t he tell the President?

UPDATE: Considerable skepticism in the comments, and on an email list I belong to, that this report is true. Well, that’s why I said “if true” above. As I noted earlier Trump’s appointees say it didn’t happen during his term. So either they’re all lying (unlikely, especially as some have authored tell-all books about their time in the Administration), the Biden people are lying when they claim it happened, or it happened but nobody told Trump or his people. I’d have to put “the Biden people are lying” at the top of the likelihood list for sure. It’s entirely believable, based on past conduct, that people in the defense establishment would keep Trump in the dark, though just because it’s believable doesn’t mean it happened. It seems least likely that all the former Trump people are lying, though one can never assign a probability of zero to political actors’ telling untruths.

ANOTHER UPDATE: From the WSJ: Prior Chinese Balloon Incursions Over U.S. Went Undetected, Officials Say: They say prior intrusions by surveillance craft into the continental U.S. were likely of short duration.

China previously sent high-altitude surveillance balloons over the U.S. that went undetected until after leaving American airspace, Biden administration officials said, as the military salvaged debris Sunday from the downed balloon in a bid to learn more about the Chinese operation.

After the Pentagon disclosed last week that it was tracking the balloon that the Air Force shot down Saturday off the Carolina coast, defense officials said that there have been prior intrusions over the continental U.S. At least three of those occurred during former President Donald Trump‘s term in office and once previously under President Biden.

Those previous balloon flights were much shorter in duration, possibly explaining why some went undetected at the time, the senior administration officials said. One official said that much of the information on the flights was pieced together later.

“This information was discovered after the prior administration left,” one of the officials said. The official said that intelligence agencies are preparing to brief key figures in the previous Trump administration.

That’s a rather convenient discovery. But if this story is true, the people who missed it should be sacked, at the very least.