The Department of Justice has launched an investigation into a Maryland company that allegedly failed to provide 1.5 million masks and 110 ventilators to hospitals, despite being paid millions to do so. The company, Blue Flame Medical, was founded in March by two political consultants without experience in medical device manufacturing. Gov. Larry Hogan said the founders used connections in his administration to secure the deal. On April 1, Maryland agreed to pay the company $12.5 million for medical materials needed to fight the coronavirus. The state paid half of the contracted amount for an April 14 delivery that never arrived, according to documents made public by the state. An attorney for Blue Flame Medical told The Baltimore Sun the agreed date was June 30: “It is beyond comprehension what this is all about.”
