Medical staff in protective gear administer a test for COVID-19 at a drive-through testing center in Paramus, N.J., Friday, March 20, 2020. The coronavirus testing center opened Friday in Bergen County which has been the state’s hardest-hit area. Gov. Phil Murphy said only those with symptoms should get in line, and not those whom he called the “worried well,” people who are feeling well but are concerned they could be infected. The facility will have the capacity to conduct 2,500 tests a week, according to the governor. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

I’ll preface this by saying that it’s possible “lie” is too strong of a word here. Nonetheless, James Rosen dropped a bombshell report today that could explain the early slow distribution of Wuhan virus tests. It involves a former official speaking on the record about what he saw at the time.

EXCLUSIVE: A former senior @HHSGov official under @POTUS claims that @CDCgov “lied” to the president about the center’s ability to produce #coronavirus test kits; CDC responds. Watch the story above.

— James Rosen (@JamesRosenTV) March 20, 2020

You can watch the full hit above, which includes the comments from the former official about the CDC misleading the Trump administration on the viability of their early testing regimes. That’s been a hot topic in regards to judging how quickly the President did or didn’t act, often used as a bludgeon within the current news coverage.

This has actually been a question for quite a while, with strong evidence to support the idea that CDC, operating within all the red tape previously created, had really dropped the ball. Tests from overseas were rejected that could have gotten the U.S. testing capacity up and going much sooner. Eventually, the CDC would admit that their early tests were giving false positives, requiring a rework. That’s how we ended up where we are today, with private companies doing the lion’s share of the heavy lifting to get this done. The fact that those private companies had to get involved is a pretty good signal that the CDC screwed this up.

For their part, the CDC gave a statement that doesn’t really deny there were issues, but instead shifts to the current good work they are doing. That may be a reasonable response, as there’s a difference between “lying” about something and just screwing up early on. RedState writer Stu Cvrk gave his own opinions about the CDC’s resoponse in a recent write up.

Once this is all over, I’m sure we’ll see plenty of deep dives to get to the bottom of this, but the President is obviously not going to address it right now with the CDC playing a central role in combating the virus.