It’s Day 12 for the hospitalization of Sec. of Defense Lloyd Austin, who kept his medical crisis secret for weeks, until finally revealing to the president that he had been in the intensive care unit at Walter Reed Hospital.
Pentagon Press Secretary Pat Ryder has vowed to keep the public informed, after the department has come under withering criticism for what was either poor judgment or incompetence in the chain of command. Austin did not inform President Joe Biden of his prostate cancer diagnosis in December, and didn’t tell President Biden or his second-in-command that he was undergoing general anesthesia on Dec. 22 and would be in the hospital overnight. He returned to the hospital on Jan. 1 after experiencing intense pain and nausea and was admitted to the ICU. But he didn’t reveal any of this to the president until later that week. The president was on vacation out of the country during some of that time.
Ryder said on Thursday that Austin continues to experience discomfort and has not yet been released from the hospital.
Friday marks the 12th day that Austin has been in Walter Reed; three of those days were in intensive care. He was described by Ryder as now performing his job from his hospital bed, after having delegated his duties to Deputy Secretary Kathleen Hicks on Jan. 2.
When he transferred some of his duties to Hicks, he did not tell her he was in the ICU. Hicks was on vacation in Puerto Rico when she became the top civilian in charge of the “certain operational authorities” of the military, not knowing her boss was having a medical emergency.
Ryder said he still does not have a specific date for Austin’s release.
“Out of an abundance of caution, of course, we want to ensure that when the doctors feel it’s appropriate for him to check out, we’ll do that,” Ryder said.
The Defense Department’s inspector general on Thursday announced he will launch an investigation into the events surrounding Austin’s medical crisis, and the breach of protocols in informing the White House, Congress, and the public. Inspector General Robert Storch said his focus will be on the Office of the Secretary of Defense, but his scope could expand.
“The objective of the review is to examine the roles, processes, procedures, responsibilities, and actions related to the Secretary of Defense’s hospitalization in December 2023 – January 2024, and assess whether the DoD’s policies and procedures are sufficient to ensure timely and appropriate notifications and the effective transition of authorities as may be warranted due to health-based or other unavailability of senior leadership,” Storch wrote in a memo to Austin.
“The DoD OIG may revise or expand the objective and scope as the review proceeds. We plan to perform this review in accordance with Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency, ‘Quality Standards for Federal Offices of Inspector General.’ We will perform the review at the Office of the Secretary of Defense. We may identify additional offices and personnel who might have information relevant to our review,” Storch wrote in his Jan. 10 memo.
“We request that you designate a staff member to serve as our point of contact for this review within 5 days of this memorandum. The point of contact should be a Government employee—a GS-15, or pay band equivalent, or the military equivalent—and knowledgeable of the matters related to the objective,” he wrote.
