Democratic New Jersey Rep. Mikie Sherrill on CNN Tuesday called out the lack of government coordination in handling recent reports of drones flying over the state, adding she is not fully “convinced” about the security.
The House Intelligence Committee on Tuesday received a classified briefing from federal officials regarding a handful of drone sightings in New Jersey, with Democratic Connecticut Rep. Jim Himes later saying that the federal government confirmed they were not operating the aircraft and that most who have “studied” the drones concluded they are “commercial” aircraft. On “Anderson Cooper 360,” the Democratic lawmaker criticized the delayed response from officials, noting there appeared to be a lack of coordination between government agencies.
“There still doesn’t appear to be the coordination I would like to see between all of the government agencies,” Sherrill said. “Even at the White House briefing, you know, myself and Pat Ryan, two military veterans, were just sort of asking questions, and I don’t think either one of us felt like even the White House briefer had the information that we had from being on the ground and speaking to our military bases, but it does appear as if sensitive equipment is finally on the ground after, as I said, almost a month to get it there.”
Sherrill went on to state that while there is now better tracking of the aircrafts and no threat has been identified, they still have “work to do.”
“We are better [at] tracking the drones. The information that the FBI has received, they are now tracking carefully all of the reports and tracking those reports,” Sherrill added. “They have not identified any threats at this time, but again, we have still quite a bit of work to do as we are behind the power curve here.”
“I think we can feel very good about that to date, but I think what we don’t feel good about, what I don’t feel good about, is a sense that this took too long, that communications still, and I’m still hearing this on the ground from law enforcement, communications are still not flowing appropriately to everyone who needs to understand where the investigations are leading and then get information to the public about what is being found, and then we need a plan going forward,” Sherrill said. “We really need to have a better operation going forward. What we’ve seen here at this time is we have like 1980s-era policies to combat a current threat, and that’s not acceptable.”
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Drone sightings over the East Coast began to circulate in early December, with New Jersey residents vocalizing their concerns about the increasing number of aircraft they were beginning to see. When asked by the CNN guest host if she felt more confident following her briefing that the issue was “bad communications right now than there’s bad stuff in the sky,” Sherrill voiced her lack of being fully convinced at the time.
“I feel like we are moving towards that at this time,” Sherrill said. “I’m still, though, not convinced that because it’s not just bad communications with people on the ground, it’s not just bad communications with the people of New Jersey. I worry that our government organizations are not communicating well with each other, which is why going forward we need a better plan of how we are going to address this, who is going to be in charge, which agency, who is going to lead the other agencies.
“Then how are they going to get the equipment we need very nimbly, very quickly on the ground so that the FBI can track this? At this point, I do feel better about that. I feel like we have the equipment on the ground. We are tracking it,” Sherrill said.
Biden officials have continued to downplay the issue, with Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas stating Friday on CNN that most of the sightings are likely consumer-grade aircrafts and not a threat.
(Featured Image Media Credit: Screenshot/CNN/”Mikie Sherrill on “Anderson Cooper 360”)
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