Look for the press and AGs office to go after all of the CMS contracts and beyond that–all the big contracts they can find and determine who the subcontractors are and how they got to be subcontractors.
Even if one were to just view this as massive incompetence, the administration is in a lot of trouble because CMS being the agency in trouble means every instance of procurement is now worth looking at and any type of problem can fit into a nice neat message that the problem continues for the administration.
By CMS fighting back, it created a bad story into a hellish story. And Rich points out they are still making it worse.