The Chinese spy balloon collected intelligence over military sites that was transmitted to Beijing — but the revelations didn’t come from a disclosure by U.S. officials. They came from a report by NBC, which spoke to two senior U.S. officials, and one former senior official.

That’s about par for the course when it comes to the administration’s handling of this saga. It’s been two months since the balloon was shot down, yet the White House has chosen to leave the public in the dark about certain key details or, worse, mislead people about them.

In the aftermath of the balloon’s discovery above the U.S., and in the weeks following the shoot-down just off the coast of South Carolina, U.S. officials led people to believe that although the balloon flew over sensitive military installations, any information it collected was of limited value.

According to the NBC report, the balloon’s operators in China were able to control it to such an extent that it passed over some sites multiple times, while sending intelligence back to Beijing in real time; the signals it picked up on could have provided information on weapons and personnel. Notably, one military site the balloon crossed over is Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana, which hosts a sizeable chunk of America’s nuclear force.

One step that the administration took during the balloon’s flight is that it moved around certain pieces of equipment on these bases and blocked signals emanating from them, diminishing the harm posed by the balloon’s signal-collection effort, according to NBC.

However, the comments by the three officials seem to indicate that Washington believes the Chinese regime collected some intelligence beyond what it could have gotten via less invasive means.

Unsurprisingly, the administration was defensive, and in responding to NBC it stuck to its previous talking points. The Pentagon claimed that the intelligence collected had “limited additive value,” while the White House declined to address the precise intelligence that could have been gleaned by the Chinese.

Administration officials should address the NBC report, and much else, in as much detail as their duty to protect classified information allows. Up to this point, comments by officials behind press-briefing lecterns, for various news stories, and in testimony before Congress have created the impression that efforts to protect military sites from intelligence collection were completely successful.

The balloon incident has faded from public view, and so too has much of the political pressure on the administration to deliver answers. But there’s still much that deserves accounting for, including the White House’s decision to shoot down the intelligence-collecting device over the waters just off the coast of South Carolina and media leaks that seemed to unfairly pin blame on the Trump administration for previous balloon incursions that were in fact not reported up the chain of command. There’s also the question of why it took until February 3, and after local Montana media reported on an object in the sky, for the administration to address the matter publicly, when Washington reportedly tracked the balloon from its launch in China.

The White House seems to think that it can move past this, shore up its relationship with Chinese officials, and allow Secretary of State Antony Blinken to make the trip to Beijing that was canceled in the aftermath of the balloon’s discovery. There are already indications that an eventual trip might be in the offing. For instance, he and his deputy have conspicuously declined to mention the role of Chinese entities in fentanyl production, and there are reports that China’s former U.S. ambassador recently held meetings at the State Department, apparently as part of a secret back channel.

Robert Frost said that a liberal is too broad-minded to take his own side in a fight. The administration has often seemed determined to live down to that adage in the balloon affair.