Pressure is growing on Capitol Hill and within the administration for someone to lose their job.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is one of the most reclusive Pentagon chiefs in recent memory. That’s creating a major problem for him now.
Austin’s failure to inform his most senior advisers, congressional leaders and even President Joe Biden of his hospitalization last week due to complications from a medical procedure has erupted into a controversy that’s left senior White House and Pentagon officials infuriated and befuddled. Some Republicans quickly called for investigations
or even for Austin to be disciplined or fired.
Joint Chiefs Chair Gen. C.Q. Brown was not informed of Austin’s situation until Tuesday, the day after his hospitalization, a senior Defense Department official told POLITICO on Sunday. Even Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks, who assumed some of his duties while he was in the hospital, did not know his whereabouts until Thursday, a second senior DOD official said after
CNN first reported the news.
“My sense is his desire to be private about a routine medical procedure kind of backfired when it didn’t go as planned,” said one senior U.S. official. “He’s so loyal and duty-bound. It’s all just very odd.”
Former and current U.S. officials who have worked with Austin say he is well-known as an introvert, shunning the cameras and keeping only a few close confidantes during his decades-long military career. As the four-star general overseeing U.S. Central Command during the Iraq drawdown, he rarely held press conferences. As defense secretary, in contrast to his predecessors, he takes only a handful of media on official travel. He has not done a press conference in the Pentagon since last July, although he regularly briefs the press during his travels.
This article is based on conversations with eight current U.S. officials and one former senior DOD official, most of whom were granted anonymity to discuss internal views.
Austin was admitted to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on the evening of Jan. 1 for complications from a recent elective medical procedure — though he has declined to provide details. For three days, not even the
White House knew of his hospitalization. DOD officials notified top Pentagon civilians and military leaders only two hours before the public reveal on Friday evening. Congress was only informed 15 minutes before the announcement went out.
The first time Austin and Biden spoke since the secretary’s Monday hospitalization was Saturday evening, a senior administration official said, even as tensions in the Middle East have spiked and the war in Ukraine has intensified. The conversation followed reports,
first from POLITICO, that the Pentagon boss waited three days to inform the White House that he was out of commission.
