(CNN) President Donald Trump ignored reports from US intelligence agencies starting in January that warned of the scale and intensity of the coronavirus outbreak in China, The Washington Post reported Friday.

Citing US officials familiar with the agencies' reports and warnings, the Post reported that intelligence agencies depicted the nature and global spread of the virus and China's apparent downplaying of its severity, as well as the potential need for government measures to contain it -- while Trump opted to dismiss or simply not address their seriousness.

"Donald Trump may not have been expecting this, but a lot of other people in the government were -- they just couldn't get him to do anything about it," the official noted to the Post. "The system was blinking red."

The CIA and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to comment to the Post. When asked for comment on the report, White House spokesperson Judd Deere directed CNN to fellow spokesperson Hogan Gidley's comment to the Post.

"President Trump has taken historic, aggressive measures to protect the health, wealth and safety of the American people -- and did so, while the media and Democrats chose to only focus on the stupid politics of a sham illegitimate impeachment," Gidley told the paper in a statement. "It's more than disgusting, despicable and disgraceful for cowardly unnamed sources to attempt to rewrite history -- it's a clear threat to this great country."

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