FLYING BLIND

White House Officials Shelved CDC Reopening Advice as States Reopened

The White House said the CDC never cleared the guidance for release, but new documents reviewed by the AP show that is not true.

White House officials made the decision to bury guidelines on reopening the country compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, The Associated Press reports. Parts of the guidelines were only sent for approval after the AP revealed on Thursday that they had inexplicably been shelved. CDC researchers reportedly worked for weeks to compile a document titled “Guidance for Implementing the Opening Up America Again Framework,” and then on April 30, the day before many states began to reopen, heard from their superiors that the White House said it was near-impossible their work “would ever see the light of day.” A week later, reporters exposed the fact that the Trump administration had quashed the information. White House spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany said CDC Director Robert Redfield had not approved the guidelines for release before the administration decided to shelve them, but a senior administration official told The Daily Beast that Redfield had in fact signed off on the guidelines.

-- Erin Banco contributed reporting.