Lutnick must explain, on the record, why chip sales to a spy-linked firm were allowed

Howard Lutnick should explain, in writing and under scrutiny, why he allowed chip sales to a company linked to an alleged Chinese spy. Lawmakers in Washington are now pressing him to do so, and their demand is reasonable. Export controls exist to stop the most advanced technology reaching rivals, so a decision that appears to weaken them needs a documented rationale.

The issue here is process, not guilt. Nobody outside the government can yet say what Mr Lutnick knew, when he knew it, or what advice he received. That uncertainty is the problem. A secretary who signs off on sensitive sales should be able to show what checks were run on the buyer, what the intelligence community said, and who made the final call.

The wider context makes a clear answer more pressing. The Nvidia affair is moving quickly and much of it is murky: social media is full of claims about the company's board and its chief executive, and the underlying story is unclear. A business paper has also asked who made around $200mn shorting Nvidia shares ahead of what it calls Jensxit, but who the trader was, and whether the bet had any connection to the export decision, is not known. An activist short-seller's report in May also raised concerns about the company's exposure to export-control enforcement through intermediaries in South-East Asia. Those were allegations, not findings. Unproven claims fill the space that official silence leaves.

The strongest counter-argument deserves a fair hearing. Supporters of the secretary say that a business link to an alleged spy is not proof of wrongdoing, and that officials routinely make licensing calls on incomplete information that look worse in hindsight. They add that export decisions often rest on classified assessments, and that demanding public explanations could expose sources or hand rivals a map of what American agencies know. Congressional pressure, they warn, can turn into theatre in which every adverse headline becomes a presumption of guilt.

Those points explain how the inquiry should be run; they do not justify avoiding it. Nobody is asking Congress to convict anyone on the strength of a headline. The request is for the reasoning behind a decision, and that can be given in layers: a public statement of the process followed, and a fuller classified briefing for the relevant committees. A secretary who has acted properly will find the record helps him. One who cannot reconstruct the decision has a larger problem than bad press.

What should happen next is specific. Mr Lutnick should deliver to the relevant committees the licensing file, the due-diligence checks on the buyer and any dissenting advice from other agencies, with classified sections handled in closed session. The commerce department's inspector general should review whether its own procedures were followed. Pending that review, further licences to the company in question should be suspended, a precaution that prejudges nothing. Finally, financial regulators should examine the unusual trading around Nvidia shares and say publicly whether any link to non-public information exists. If the answers are clean, the secretary is cleared and the controls regain credibility. If they are not, the public and allies who depend on those controls will need to know.