Does that sound plausible to you? Or even a better argument? If I was fully onboard with America is the only country that matters I would be apoplectic to find out they let a known spy just leave
I'm not saying it can't be determined, but it feels like an issue that can't be easily resolved during a border check within a few hours.
In reality, given the pattern of intimidation and lies from this government, it was probably something innocuous that was trumped up even just to be a violation of an NDA (e.g. maybe a draft of a not-yet-published non-unusual research paper that included an author from Los Alamos), or else this government would have emphasized the sensitive or dangerous nature of that "confidential information".
As for whether they knowingly let a spy leave, that would depend on a full timeline.
No it does not if the defense for denying him entry was knowing that he was a spy?
Stop arguing out of both sides of your mouth. So far both proffered explanations are unacceptable.
To be clear the two answers so far have been,
1: we found personal comments of him on his phone critical of the administration and denied him entry based on that, which is unacceptable on free speech grounds
Or
2: he was known or found to have secrets from one of our nuclear labs and was denied entry based on the fact that we knew he had these forbidden files, and we let him go. This is unacceptable on national security grounds.
You can’t mix and match from the two scenarios
If he stole documents I don’t want my government only flagging him for denial to reentry. If he stole documents from our nuclear labs I want him in cuffs.
How am I being inconsistent if your “false dichotomy” claim persists?
My entire point is that these things are seldom so black and white as put forward. The US administration has a self serving answer, but so do the French and this anonymous scientist. Which do you think is less professionally damaging for a European, being denied entrance due to views on American politics or being denied based on mishandling of classified material?
In an ideal world, I would prefer to see any mishandling of classification prosecuted, that seldom is how it works.
Without knowing a timeline, it isn't even clear which administration was running things under which events.
I don't give a fuck what the French or Europeans think. I am holding my own government accountable to what are ostensibly the values we share(freedom of speech and national security) and finding them lacking. It requires zero input from the French scientist in question for me to be upset with the situation
And no, I don't need a timeline to understand this because my problem with the government's own explanation does not have a time based component
We get ~200,000 foreign visitors flying into US airports a day. That we have a handful of people over months who had issues seems more like the normal rate, and evidence there is no weird screening policy, which would probably affect thousands, not dozens.
Also I find it very hard to believe that random border guards would find such thing during a spot check.
Instead we have a French beurocrat complaining about it on his behalf himself pushing the bad messages found narrative. This all smells of cover-up.
A plausible explanation would be that the US knows confidential information ended up in France and the person who was denied entry was the only plausible vector but was not caught red handed. Instead he was shadow banned and was nabbed for interrogation at the border where he confessed. And it could well be that the border agents scraped together a story about his messages as an excuse to bounce a persona non grata to keep the diplomatic issue quiet because banning a guy for Trump hate is a better diplomatic choice. (i.e. what is to be gained from holding him vs letting France burn him for getting caught). This all seems extremely plausible to me.
In any case there's obviously more to the story and that's the point. Not knowing who this guy is really underscores there's something diplomatically delicate at play here and the US has sent France whatever message it needs already IMHO.
Put another way: if you are affiliated with France's nuclear weapons program maybe there's something work-related going on between France and the US. That's how I interpret this story.
A simpler thing to make up would be a family matter, some unverifiable criminal record or whatever. Even noncooperation which is a valid reason to refuse entry. Or most likely: simply "no comment" would have done.
It doesn't help that we don't know the identity, no. But I'd keep my head down too if it happened to me. Science is a field where everyone knows everyone and it's not one where you want to be known as a troublemaker.
I agree we don't know the details and that there's probably more to the story but I don't think the criticism thing is made up.
It just keeps seeming to be these things where the press is really pushing this narrative but the stories they bring always carry an asterisk.
To be quite honest I have alarm fatigue when these keep popping up. They all register as clickbait. I have not encountered a single one yet that wasn't smoke spun up for clicks and outrage.
We've been though only 60 days now and institution after institution is being completely dismantled.
Health, Education, Science, Weather Service, soon USPS, aid to the world with medication to stop HIV etc and food for children, all gone.
They paid a torture prison to take people out of US jurisdiction so judges couldn't order hearings, there are people who were legit seeking asylum and have obviously never been in a gang or criminals who might never see the light of day again
Russel Vought, Stephen Miller, Steve Bannon are full blown fascists following the Project2025 plan page by page.
Imagine this country in 200 more weeks.
Imagine what's going to go down once Congress and the Supreme Court are out for the summer and can't react quickly enough to all the illegal activities.
It's going to take DECADES to recover from this damage.
E.g. This story of the French researcher which started as, "A French scientist has been denied entry into the United States, apparently because the scientist had expressed a personal opinion on the Trump administration's research policy"
In fact turned out to be, "The French researcher in question was in possession of confidential information on his electronic device from Los Alamos National Laboratory — in violation of a non-disclosure agreement— something he admitted to taking without permission and attempted to conceal,”
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/21/world/europe/us-france-sc...