by The House Armed Services Committee on Thursday asked Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III to testify next month about why he and his aides kept the White House secret for several days that he was hospitalized after of suffering complications from prostate cancer surgery.
The committee’s chairman, Rep. Mike D. Rogers, R-Alabama, said “Congress must understand what happened and who made decisions to prevent the disclosure of a Cabinet secretary’s whereabouts.”
Rogers said he scheduled a hearing for Feb. 14 after accusing Austin of dodging important questions about the secretary’s hospitalization during a recent phone call between the two men.
“Specifically, I am alarmed that you have refused to answer whether you instructed your staff not to inform the President of the United States or anyone else about your hospitalization,” Mr. Rogers said in a letter to mr austin which the committee made public Thursday night. “Unfortunately, this leads me to believe that information is being withheld from Congress.”
Austin was discharged Monday from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, and has been working at home as he recovers. Top Pentagon advisers have been eager to try to put the episode behind them, seeking to paint a picture of returning to work, albeit from home, for their boss by issuing statements that he spoke by phone this week with his counterparts in Ukraine and Israel. .
But there is little chance that the problem will go away anytime soon. Lawmakers and senior administration officials say Austin’s handling of the matter has damaged his credibility with President Biden and Congress, and raises questions about his department’s overall competence in addressing the crisis of its own making. All of that is now the subject of a 30-day internal department review, as well as an investigation by the Department of Defense inspector general.
Austin, a 70-year-old retired Army general, was in severe pain and was taken by ambulance to Walter Reed on Jan. 1. He was placed in intensive care after complications from prostate removal surgery he underwent on December 22.
But several senior Pentagon officials did not learn of the secretary’s hospitalization until the next day, January 2. The White House was not notified until January 4, a major breach of protocol at the highest levels of national security. To further complicate matters, neither the Pentagon nor White House officials learned until January 9 that Austin had been diagnosed with cancer in early December.
