Sen. Roger Wicker (Miss.), the top-ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, slammed Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s response to questions about his hospitalization earlier this month as “completely unacceptable.”
Wicker on Monday expressed his displeasure over Austin’s responses to a letter the senior GOP senator sent on Jan. 10 demanding to know the details of the Defense secretary’s treatment for complications related to prostate surgery.
Wicker asked Austin to explain when he was admitted to an intensive care unit and why he was taken by ambulance instead of his security detail. He also asked about the nature and timeline of Austin’s incapacitation and who was notified of his medical situation.
The senator said the answers he got were inadequate.
“This response is completely unacceptable. It fails to answer specific questions we posed about the secretary’s decisions and actions,” Wicker said in a statement.
“We have given Secretary Austin and the department every opportunity to be forthright. Their failure to provide a fully truthful accounting of events is disappointing. Something like this cannot be permitted to happen again,” he added.
Austin, in a Thursday letter to Wicker, wrote that “at no time during my stay at Walter Reed were there any gaps in authorities or risk to command-and-control.”
He insisted he or Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks “have always been fully prepared to support the president as commander-in-chief” throughout his time in the hospital.
Austin explained he underwent a prostatectomy at Walter Reed on Dec. 22 and that his deputy secretary assumed the duties of his office while he was under general anesthesia. He said he was discharged from the hospital and resumed his duties as secretary that same day.
Austin said he experienced an unexpected complication on Jan. 1 when he began feeling nauseated and pain in his abdomen, hip and leg.
“I decided to return to Walter Reed via ambulance, given the amount of pain that I was experiencing. The following day, I was admitted to the intensive care unit for closer monitoring, and the Deputy Secretary again assumed the functions and duties of my office,” he wrote.
He said Hicks always had access to classified and unclassified communications systems, even though she was in Puerto Rico at the time.
He said he resumed his “functions and duties” on Jan. 5 and never lost consciousness or underwent anesthesia after being admitted to the hospital on New Year’s Day.
“While at Walter Reed, I had full access to required secure communications capabilities and continued to monitor the Department’s day-to-day operations worldwide,” he wrote to Wicker.
But Austin acknowledged he should have done a better job keeping President Biden and the White House fully informed about the situation.
He said he shared Wicker’s concerns that “the department must take steps to improve policies and procedures to ensure timely notification of the president, senior officials within the Department of Defense.”
“I have always said that the Department of Defense is a learning organization and I am committed to transparency and improving processes moving forward, he said, noting that the Pentagon’s performance improvement officer and director of administration and management is conducting a review of the matter and will issue a report within 30 days.