Lawmakers fault Defense Secretary Austin for a failure of leadership over his secret hospital stay
LA TimesSecretary of Defense Lloyd Austin appears before the House Armed Services Committee on Capitol Hill on Thursday in Washington. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin faced pointed bipartisan criticism at a congressional hearing Thursday for his failure to promptly notify President Biden and other U.S. leaders about his hospital stay last month. “I was the patient and so my expectation is that the organization informed the right agencies,” Austin said, when asked why it took four days to inform the White House that he was hospitalized. The Pentagon has said Austin’s staff notified Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks when Austin went into intensive care in early January. And, frankly, my first instinct was to keep it private.” The internal review said procedures must be improved and information shared better when the defense secretary must transfer decision-making authorities to the deputy.