A Pentagon watchdog found that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin needlessly risked U.S. national security by not immediately informing Congress and the White House of his hospitalization last January.
“Although we found no adverse consequences to DoD operations arising from how the hospitalizations we reviewed were handled, the risks to our national defense, including the command and control of the DoD’s critical national security operations, were increased unnecessarily,” wrote the Department of Defense inspector general in a new report.
Austin was admitted to the hospital multiple times in late 2023 and early 2024 while undergoing treatment for prostate cancer. After experiencing severe pain following a procedure, he was taken to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center via ambulance on Jan. 1, 2024. His condition worsened, and Austin transitioned to a more intense wing of the hospital, where he no longer had access to the secure communications required of his job.
While he transferred authorities to Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks during that period, she did not immediately know why — nor did Congress or the White House immediately know about his diagnosis or condition.
The report found that Austin should have notified other parts of the government earlier and considered transferring authorities during later procedures, or, when doing so, transferred them sooner. The investigation did not find the hospital stays, or delays in announcing them, harmed U.S. national security. But the process posed the “potential for adverse effects,” it concluded.
Soon after the incident, the Pentagon led a separate review and recommended changes to its policy for transferring authorities. These changes later went into effect when Austin again entered the hospital after further complications in February.
At the center of the report is an unusually discreet secretary who rarely shares personal details about his own life and didn’t encourage open inquiry among his staff.
“Secretary Austin’s strong desire for privacy about his medical condition is a thread that runs through all the events that we reviewed, including in his public statements about his hospitalization,” the report found.
The secretary later held a press conference, where he admitted fault in the face of highly critical questions from reporters. Weeks afterwards, he also appeared before Congress for a similar grilling.
The report comes just days before Austin departs the Pentagon, where he served as secretary for all four years of President Joe Biden’s time in the White House. President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to succeed him in the Defense Department, former Fox News personality Pete Hegseth, appeared before Congress this week for a confirmation hearing.
Noah Robertson is the Pentagon reporter at Defense News. He previously covered national security for the Christian Science Monitor. He holds a bachelor’s degree in English and government from the College of William & Mary in his hometown of Williamsburg, Virginia.
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