It’s been nearly a year since the debacle of the infamous Chinese spy balloon played out over the skies of North America. While the balloon initially entered American airspace over Alaska on January 27, the public didn’t learn about it until a week later when a Montana news outlet published pictures of it on February 3rd. And according to a new report based on statements from a former senior US military official, if the Pentagon and the White House had their way, you never would have known about it. They even planned to keep the news secret from members of Congress.

The Biden administration planned to keep the Chinese spy balloon that traveled across North America this year a secret from the public and even from Congress — and only came clean after civilians saw the massive white orb over Montana, according to a damning new report.

“Before it was spotted publicly, there was the intention to study it and let it pass over and not ever tell anyone about it,” a former senior US official told NBC News Friday, nearly 11 months after the balloon penetrated American airspace and began a meandering week-long tour of sensitive military sites.

When the North American Aerospace Defense Command saw the huge spycraft enter US airspace over Alaska Jan. 27, commander Gen. Glen VanHerck called Gen. Mark Milley, President Biden’s top military adviser, to flag the administration on the alarming intrusion.

Initially, the military apparently didn’t even want to tell Biden. (Can you blame them?) They knew about it for four days before Joe Biden was informed. The closest they came to bringing him into the loop before that was a tip given to the President’s military adviser, General Mark Milley. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin was reportedly “too focused” on an upcoming trip to Asia to be bothered. None of them planned to inform Congress about this, including the Gang of Eight, who are supposed to be in the loop on all major matters of interest and security.

Even putting aside the efforts at unwarranted secrecy, this was simply an idiotic plan to begin with. There was something the size of three school buses floating across the country at a leisurely pace. Did they honestly think that nobody was going to notice? While it’s understandable that it might have been missed while flying over thinly populated regions of Alaska and the Canadian Rockies, the prevailing winds were clearly going to take it over larger population centers in the lower 48 states. Even with the distracted nature of our current populace, somebody was going to look up and ask what the heck that thing was sooner or later.

This report further reminds us of the fundamentally dishonest nature of the Biden administration. Even after the White House knew about it and a reporter in Montana let the cat out of the bag, we were fed one story after another that wound up being shown to be blatantly untrue. As recently as June, Biden was telling reporters that he didn’t believe the Chinese government knew where the balloon was, what was in it, or “what was going on.” That’s obviously nonsense and was yet another case of Joe Biden trying to provide cover for the country that rewarded his family so richly over the years.

We were also told that our military had either prevented the balloon from transmitting data back to the CCP or that the balloon was incapable of doing so. (The story kept changing.) That turned out to be patently false also. The military confirmed that the balloon’s electronic suite had “transmitted data it collected from military sites back to Beijing.” Biden administration officials further claimed that there was “no intention to keep this from Congress at any point.” That’s a curious response to deliver with a straight face when Congress wasn’t fully briefed on it until after it had been shot down.

What was driving all of this lying and obfuscation? It’s not as if the press caught the Biden administration doing something terrible. This was China’s equipment and the CCP’s scheme. Joe Biden should have been as outraged as anyone else and taken some sort of action in response. Instead, he tried to cover for China and hide their actions from the American public. Something tells me there’s a lot more to this story that we still haven’t heard. And we may never learn it if Biden and his handlers have their way.