John Kirby drone statement 'very misleading at best': New Jersey rep

Rep. Chris Smith (R- N.J.) slammed White House national security spokesperson John Kirby’s statement about the recent mysterious drone sightings on the East Coast.

“Well, I think it's very misleading at best," Smith said in an interview on NewsNation's "The Hill" on Monday evening. "If [Kirby] knows something, he should say."

Smith, who represents New Jersey’s 4th Congressional District, was reacting to Kirby's comments on Fox News when he said there's no indication that the uptick in drone sightings in recent days pose a significant risk to public safety.

“We’ve done the detection, then the analysis. We’ve corroborated the sightings,” Kirby said. “And in every case that we have examined to date, we have seen nothing, nothing that indicates a public safety risk.”

Kirby stated that unmanned drones in New Jersey's skies and elsewhere are flying legally and do not pose a threat to Garden State residents.

“There are drones flying over the skies of the United States every single night, every single day, and we’ve seen nothing in this, in and around New Jersey, that should give the people on the ground their concerns for their safety, for this activity,” he said.

“And we’ve seen nothing, working with the Department of Defense as well, that indicates a foreign adversary actor involved or any kind of pernicious national security threat," Kirby added.

Smith, who has urged the Pentagon to bring the drones down, said he recently spoke to a Coast Guard commander who said that there were anywhere from 12 to 30 drones near one of the rescue boats.

“To say that sightings that people in the Coast Guard in the United States Navy and Naval Air Station, Weapons Station Earl, which is in my district, they've seen drones at and right in close proximity to that munitions depot,” Smith told NewsNation’s Blake Burman.

“Many, many law enforcement people have seen it. They've seen it in a way that suggests formations that are being — coming off the ocean into the land,” the GOP lawmaker added. “Even with the Coast Guard, I spoke to one of the commanders who said one of our 47-foot rescue boats, right on its stern, were between 12 and 30 drones following close proximity to that. I mean, they had no idea who they were.”

His comments come as the Biden administration’s response to mounting public concern over the drones has led to divisions on Capitol Hill, where some Democrats are defending the executive assurances that there’s no threat and others are bashing the various agencies for providing no proof to back those claims.

NewsNation is owned by Nexstar Media Group, which also owns The Hill.

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