It’s not a conflict of interest, it’s a lie on a background check that likely would have lost him the DoD grants.
I don’t think anyone is saying “don’t establish a lab” but if someone asks you whether you’re being paid by foreign interests you can’t just say “I don’t know who the organization is that had been paying me for years.”
This has nothing to do with conflict of interest, outside of the conflicts between DoD and whether clearances / grants are released to those that are being paid by other nation states.
God knows why he wanted to lie, perhaps the DoD grants are really important for the lab. Giving how sensitive things are with China, I think it's fair to say that it would have had a large impact on those grants.
I do know some professor with 40+ graduates/post-graduates. It feels like academia have became mini feudal fiefdoms but instead of farming land it farm grants, with papers.
I don’t think anyone is saying “don’t establish a lab” but if someone asks you whether you’re being paid by foreign interests you can’t just say “I don’t know who the organization is that had been paying me for years.”
This has nothing to do with conflict of interest, outside of the conflicts between DoD and whether clearances / grants are released to those that are being paid by other nation states.