Remember the Chinese surveillance balloon that Biden let float over the entire United States before finally shooting it down over the Atlantic ocean?

According to a new report from NBC News, Biden wanted to hide the existence of the balloon from both Congress and the public:

Administration officials at first hoped to conceal the balloon’s existence from the public, and from Congress, according to multiple former and current administration and congressional officials.

“Before it was spotted publicly, there was the intention to study it and let it pass over and not ever tell anyone about it,” said a former senior U.S. official briefed on the balloon incident.

Biden officials deny this is so, but apparently NBC believes in their sources enough that they ran this reporting anyway.

NBC News also reports that officials believe the plan from China was to self-destruct the balloon after it crossed the US:

After NBC News broke the story on Feb. 2, officials also arranged to brief other media outlets later that evening. Once the balloon’s existence became public, U.S. officials said it stopped transmitting data. Officials also assessed that China’s plan was to self-destruct the balloon, not return it back home.

Here’s some other interesting details from the report:

Soon after VanHerck’s phone call with Milley, U.S. military jets dispatched from Alaska used their targeting pods to determine what was on board the object. They confirmed that it was a Chinese spy balloon that was not carrying offensive weapons but was outfitted with a large payload of surveillance equipment.

VanHerck began sending emails every 12 hours to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Milley and other Pentagon leaders to update them on the balloon’s location, threat, projected flight path and likely intent.

In one email, VanHerck wrote that he determined the balloon was not an imminent threat and did not have hostile intent, so he did not have the authority to shoot it down. That order would have to come from the Pentagon and the White House.

Biden first learned of the balloon on Jan. 31, three days after VanHerck’s phone call to Milley. Top aides told him it appeared headed for the continental U.S., and Biden asked for options from the military for how to deal with it.

The balloon’s ability to fly and gather intelligence was mostly powered by 16 solar panels, and it was remotely steered for a time from inside of China, while also using the wind and the jet stream to push it across the U.S.

Early photos from the U.S. military of the balloon’s payload showed antennas that were likely used to listen to cellphones and other signals. The payload weighed about 2,000 pounds and was about 200 feet tall.

Biden’s military advisers warned him that it could not be safely shot down because of a massive potential debris field that would endanger people and structures below. NASA initially assessed that field to be 70 miles wide and 70 miles long, with thousands of pounds of debris falling 65,000 feet.

The president asked basic questions about the balloon and its capabilities. At times, he grew frustrated with how little U.S. intelligence officials knew about China’s balloon program.

American skies

When it crossed into Montana on Jan. 31, the Pentagon was tracking it with radar, F-22 jets and other aircraft. They watched the balloon closely and collected intelligence on its capabilities.

U.S. officials later assessed that Chinese President Xi Jinping knew about the balloon program but didn’t know about this specific one, including that it had crossed into U.S. airspace. American intelligence officials concluded that Xi was embarrassed by it. Some believe that’s at least partly what led to the ouster of China’s defense minister in October.

Feb. 1 also was the first time Austin, the defense secretary, spoke to VanHerck about the balloon. Austin took the phone call at 3 a.m., underscoring how urgent the issue had become. Until then, his top aide had received emails from VanHerck, as the secretary was traveling in Asia and focused on that trip.

“They weren’t paying attention,” a senior U.S. official later said.

VanHerck said he wasn’t asked to present options until Austin made the request on behalf of the president. After being briefed at the White House on ways to shoot down the balloon, Biden directed the military to do so as soon as safely possible.

But the enormous debris field remained a danger. The military, along with NASA, began to work on ways to decrease its size by using the weather, trajectory and size of the balloon, and its estimated payload.

As the balloon continued taking photos and attempting to gather sensory data to store on board for later, the U.S. gathered information on how it operated. VanHerck later told lawmakers that American intelligence officials had to get special authorization to collect intelligence on the balloon while it was over the U.S. and that they were granted that authority.

In the U.S., China’s claim it was a weather balloon that veered off course was dismissed as insufficient and dishonest. That day, Blinken announced he was postponing his trip to China.

By then, U.S. military and NASA officials had developed a plan to minimize the debris field to a square area 6 nautical miles wide and long. Biden signed off on the military shooting down the balloon over U.S. territorial waters, with U.S. Navy assets nearby to collect the wreckage.

On Saturday, Feb. 4, a U.S. Air Force F-22 shot down the balloon exactly 6 miles off the coast of South Carolina.