Democratic lawmakers who attended a classified House Intelligence Committee briefing on Tuesday said there’s no evidence of foreign adversaries or “little green men” controlling the drones that have drawn widespread attention.
But some of them said they still won’t be satisfied until more information is shared with the public.
Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi told reporters after the briefing: “Show us the data. Show us how it’s manned aircraft.”
The briefing, which included officials from the Pentagon and the FBI, came in response to recent drone sightings over New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania that have been dominating the news cycle. Senate Intelligence Committee members told NOTUS last week they weren’t happy with the status of the executive branch’s investigations or its level of transparency with the public or lawmakers.
On Tuesday, it was clear that some of the lawmakers’ patience was wearing thin with some of the conspiracy theories that had proliferated around the drone sightings.
Rep. Chrissy Houlahan told reporters she’s “satisfied” with what officials told the lawmakers about the potential drone incursions — but that they didn’t tell her anything she didn’t already know.
“They haven’t found anything that would indicate foreign influence, foreign actors or even little green men working on the American people,” Houlahan said. “I’m not really sure why some of my colleagues have decided that this is important to scare the public, but I don’t think that that’s a terribly responsible thing to do.”
She also said there’s a need for Congress to better equip state and local governments to respond to drone incursions, including through a proposal that has received bipartisan support in the Senate and House in the past. She called on Speaker Mike Johnson to include that legislation in the continuing resolution that Congress is trying to pass before government funding runs out on Dec. 20. Johnson’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Several theories have circulated about what the drones might be, including one by Republican Rep. Jeff Van Drew, who initially said an Iranian “mothership” was responsible before later walking back the statement.
Since then, the Pentagon and White House have made statements that there has been no evidence to suggest that public safety is at risk or that foreign adversaries are operating drones to surveil Americans — though the administration has not provided much additional information about what they are.
Last week, a senior FBI official told lawmakers at a hearing about the drones in New Jersey, “We just don’t know” who is responsible.
At least one member of Congress, Sen. Andy Kim of New Jersey, took a look with his own eyes Friday night by going drone-spotting with local law enforcement. He posted a lengthy thread on X about what he saw, but concluded the next day that they were “almost certainly planes.” Still, he called for federal agencies to be more open with the public. “Press releases from federal agencies that don’t share analysis of evidence and instead just reiterate statements aren’t helpful,” he said.
The statements from officials have seemingly not reassured New Jerseyans; the FBI and New Jersey State Police had to ask the public Monday to stop pointing lasers at manned aircraft — and to refrain from firing at them.
Several members of both parties who attended the classified briefing for House Intelligence Committee members declined to comment.
But Rep. Ami Bera told reporters he felt “reassured now” after the classified briefing, but transparency from the federal government to the public is “important.”
“If we don’t put that out there, other actors, like conspiracy theorists, et cetera, are gonna fill that space,” Bera told reporters. He said it’s up to Congress to catch up with commercial drone popularity: “We have to legislatively come up with the ability to be able to track those drones based on radio frequency and so forth.”
The Pentagon held a news conference Tuesday afternoon and Major General Pat Ryder, the agency’s press secretary, told reporters the Pentagon stands by its joint-agency statement about the investigation — that the sightings are likely a result of “a combination of lawful commercial drones, hobbyist drones, law enforcement drones as well as manned, fixed-wing aircraft.”
“We are sharing as much information as we can based on what we know,” Ryder told reporters.
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Emily Kennard is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.