Nvidia dismissed the spy report in October; its own CEO confirmed it in November.

…(cont) At the second window — wrong building, same day's paper, somehow — I read Nvidia's own answer, from that same October 29th: the matter had been "thoroughly investigated and debunked last year." Dismissed, in other words. I wrote that word down, because I had a feeling I'd be back to it. I'm sorry in advance. I was.

Because at the annex — third stop, correct form at last, twenty-one dollars and a photograph the first two windows never mentioned — someone had the follow-up. Seven days after the board called the story debunked, three Republican committee chairmen in the House — Moolenaar, Mast, and Crawford — wrote Nvidia asking Mr. Huang to sit for a closed-door briefing on, their words, "security protocols against foreign adversary espionage." Seven days. The receipts don't explain why that's the gap between a matter closed and a matter three congressional chairmen still wanted explained in a room with no reporters in it. They just record that it is the gap.

Then, ten days after the board called it debunked — not two weeks, ten days; I did the subtraction twice at the annex counter, because the woman behind me was in a hurry and I wanted to be sure I had it right — the same board announced an investigation into the same relationship. Sunday. Mr. Huang wrote a letter to his own employees saying he had fallen short, that he had been unfaithful. The board, in that same announcement, said it had no reason to believe the company's secrets or national security had been compromised. That's a different sentence than the one from October 29th. Both sentences, the record shows, are about the same woman, the same relationship, the same board.

Here's the part I almost didn't get, because the annex closes at four and I was already late picking up the dog. The New York Times reported, the same day as the confession, that Secretary of State Rubio's office had drafted a memo about this very relationship back in the spring — months before the board's October answer, months before the Sunday letter. A memo. From the spring. Sitting in Washington while a company spent the fall calling the story settled.

So — hold on, one more thing, before I go find parking — if the government already had this in the spring, what exactly did October's "debunked last year" settle? The letter from Mr. Huang doesn't say. Neither does the board. Only the memo has a date on it, and that date sits months before both of theirs. So which was it: a relationship investigated and debunked last year, the way the board said on October 29th, or a relationship Washington already had on paper before anyone in this story ever used the word dismissed?