It is easy to believe that is what happened based on the details in the article but what we are seeing is a filtered view in hindsight.
It's like when you watch a movie with a twist that you didn't see coming. But then you go back and re-watch it knowing the ending and you gleefully point out all of the places the film makers put subtle clues which you didn't catch. Imagine telling the ending to a friend. He then watches the film and says: "how could anyone not see the twist? it was so obvious the entire time!"
What seems in hindsight as "withholding data" might have been seen at the time in a completely different light.
It reminds me of situations I heard stories about at two workplaces. Both were cases where a new hire was given a task to complete. They were giving excuses, showing partial progress, dodging inquiries. In both cases the new hire lasted over 3 months before it was realized they were doing absolutely no work at all. In all cases it was obvious in hindsight but during the course of the deception all of the excuses added up.
Sometimes excuses are true, but plausible excuses for not making progress (like those of your interns) are different from the extraordinary excuses needed for persistent and objective actively harmful behaviour.
These patterns of bad research tend to go on for a while because the involved people might be powerful and in any case calling them out requires effort and exposure, not because discovering that unreasonably defensive behaviour hides bad research is a surprising "twist".
It's like when you watch a movie with a twist that you didn't see coming. But then you go back and re-watch it knowing the ending and you gleefully point out all of the places the film makers put subtle clues which you didn't catch. Imagine telling the ending to a friend. He then watches the film and says: "how could anyone not see the twist? it was so obvious the entire time!"
What seems in hindsight as "withholding data" might have been seen at the time in a completely different light.
It reminds me of situations I heard stories about at two workplaces. Both were cases where a new hire was given a task to complete. They were giving excuses, showing partial progress, dodging inquiries. In both cases the new hire lasted over 3 months before it was realized they were doing absolutely no work at all. In all cases it was obvious in hindsight but during the course of the deception all of the excuses added up.