Tipsheet

Maryland Gov. Hogan to Trump: We Wouldn't Have Botched COVID Tests If It Wasn't for You

Since the start of the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic earlier this year, Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) has repeatedly said testing is the best way for life to get back to normal. In early April, Hogan directed his state to purchase 500,000 COVID tests from South Korea. The problem, however, was that those tests had "flaws" and weren't used.

According to The Washington Post, Hogan dropped $9.46 million for the South Korean tests. Once Hogan's administration realized the tests were ineffective, Hogan reportedly paid the company another $2.5 million to replace the first batch of flawed tests.

From WaPo:

The state offered the tests free to two private labs, one of which declined because the tests took much longer to process than U.S. versions, records and interviews show.

The University of Maryland, which had spent months equipping its lab in Baltimore to process coronavirus tests, abandoned the replacement South Korean tests this fall after a spate of suspected false positives. But the other private lab continues to use them; a state official said Wednesday that 370,000 of the replacement tests have been used.

To make matters even worse, when it became apparent that the tests were flawed, Hogan and his team reportedly kept testing data and flags from the state legislature, state spending authorities and even the public.

Hogan decided to order tests on his own because he was "frustrated" with the Trump administration, The New York Times reported at the time. Hogan reportedly relied on his wife, Yumi, a Korean immigrant, to help broker a deal.

The Hogans touted the deal so much that they shared photos of them meeting with the delivery person at the airport.

When President Trump received word of the news, he took to Twitter to blast Hogan:

Hogan retorted, saying governors across the nation shouldn't have had to "fend for themselves" to get the coronavirus tests they needed.