On Tuesday, the White House announced that some of the drones observed flying over New Jersey and other areas in November had received authorization from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt provided an update “directly” from President Donald Trump, clarifying the origins of the drones, which had ignited a national controversy, much speculation, and dominated headlines for several weeks late last year.
“After research and study, the drones that were flying over New Jersey in large numbers were authorized by the FAA for research and various other reasons,” Leavitt said during her first press conference on Tuesday. “This was not the enemy,” Leavitt said, without explaining what kind of research the FAA was conducting. Still, the fact that the Trump White House revealed this much is a huge difference from the Biden regime, which refused to identify the origins of the drones for weeks amid a multitude of press inquiries.
In addition to FAA-authorized drones, the White House reported that sightings of hobbyist-operated drones also increased as public interest in the phenomenon grew. These drone sightings in November and December initially sparked widespread concern and even garnered the attention of the FBI, Fox News reported.
“The FBI Newark, NJ State Police, and NJ Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness are asking for the public to report any information related to the recent sightings of possible drones flying in several areas along the Raritan River,” a Dec. 3 FBI statement noted. In response to the surge in drone sightings, the Federal Aviation Administration under Biden imposed temporary flight restrictions, banning drone operations over designated areas of New Jersey.
The agency, however, failed to inform the public that it was responsible for operating the drones, and for its part, the Biden-Harris regime tried to obfuscate and cover up the incidents. An alleged analysis by the Biden White House, in coordination with the FBI and state and local officials, concluded that “lawful, legal, commercial hobbyist and even law enforcement aircraft activity” was responsible for the sightings, former White House national security communications adviser John Kirby previously told Fox News.
Trump had vowed to get to the bottom of the matter once he assumed office. “I can’t imagine it’s an enemy, or there would have been, you know, people would have gotten blown up, all of them. Maybe they were testing things. I don’t know why. They wouldn’t have said what it was,” Trump said from the Oval Office last week. “They had a lot of them flying over Bedminster, which is interesting,” referring to his club in New Jersey.