I don’t buy it. Personally, I believe Len Sassaman was probably Satoshi.
A govt initiative would have had more participants so more people who would leak or fight over (spend) some of the coins. Sassaman died around the time that Satoshi disappeared.
The paper referred to in that report was a David Chaum-type ecash system. Nothing like bitcoin. Sassaman was one of the OG cypherpunks so he would have been familiar with Adam’s hashcash / proof of work, etc.
It’s more likely Sassaman might disguise his name as Satoshi Nakamoto rather than a guy named Tatsuiaki Okamoto (who probably would have used “John Smilth”).
More on Sassaman:
https://evanhatch.medium.com/len-sassaman-and-satoshi-e483c85c2b10