White House says no risk after Trump decries drone ‘suspense’

The White House assessed that drone sightings in New Jersey and the Northeast pose no security risk, attributing them to various lawful drones

The White House said that a law enforcement assessment of the thousands of reported drone sightings in New Jersey and other Northeastern states found no reason for alarm, after President-elect Donald Trump suggested the US government was keeping Americans “in suspense” over the sightings.

A law enforcement analysis of the hundreds of drone sightings recorded in New Jersey and other Northeastern states, according to the White House, found no cause for concern. (AP)

“We assess that the sightings to date include a combination of lawful commercial drones, hobbyist drones and law enforcement drones, as well as manned fixed wing aircraft, helicopters and even stars that were mistakenly reported as drones,” White House national security spokesman John Kirby told reporters. “We have not identified anything anomalous or any national security or public safety risk over the civilian airspace in New Jersey, or other states in the Northeast.”

Kirby said that of more than 5,000 tips to the FBI in recent weeks, the agency felt the need to follow up on 100 reported incidents. Advanced detection technology and trained visual observers did not find reason for concern, and there are more than a million drones legally registered across the US, Kirby said.

But the White House is also planning to call for a new bipartisan task force “to examine congestion in the skies and to help set appropriate rules to address the public’s concerns,” Kirby added.

The comments came after Trump said earlier Monday, without citing evidence, that the US military knew where drones took off from.

“For some reason they don’t want to comment,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. “And I think they’d be better off saying what it is if our military knows and our president knows. And for some reason they want to keep people in suspense.”

Trump said he “can’t imagine it’s the enemy” but stoked doubts about it and suggested his property in Bedminster, New Jersey, could be a target. “They’re very close to Bedminster. I think maybe I won’t spend the weekend in Bedminster,” he said.

The Biden administration has said there’s no indication of a foreign link to the drone.

“I want to assure the American public that we are on it,” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said Sunday on ABC’s This Week. The administration has called on Congress to strengthen powers for inter-agency responses to drone sightings.