"OFFICIALS MASKED SEVERITY OF HACK"

The above title is a quote of a headline in yesterday's Wall Street Journal.  Here's a quote from the story underneath that headline:

Before the OPM formally announced June 4 that it had been hacked, officials at the agency denied to the Wall Street Journal that security clearance forms were taken, as people familiar with the attack had described.
A day after the public announcement, an OPM spokesman said there was 'no evidence to suggest that information other than what is normally found in a personnel file had been exposed.'  By that time, the FBI already knew - and told OPM - that security-clearance forms had been tapped, officials said.

This is obviously a big problem, but the government seems more interested in minimizing the issue and deflecting blame, than they are in repairing the damage.