President Joe Biden is unlikely to fire the Defence Department’s top civilian official over his failure to keep the White House in the loop as he spent last week in hospital despite growing criticism over the matter, according to White House officials.
A White House official said the president is not considering removing Mr Austin, a former four-star US Army general, even though he did not let Mr Biden or his top aides know that he was hospitalised starting on 1 January.
Another senior Biden aide told The Independent that Mr Biden trusts Mr Austin implicitly and values how the Pentagon boss prefers to be a “work horse” rather than a “show horse” in his cabinet, but the official predicted there would be some consequences further down the Defence Department chain of command over what appears to be a lapse in communication.
John Kirby, a National Security Council spokesperson, told reporters aboard Air Force One on Monday that there is currently “no plan for anything other than for Secretary Austin to stay in the job” at this time.
“The President respects the fact that Secretary Austin took ownership for the lack of transparency, he also respects the amazing job he's done as Defence Secretary and how he's handled multiple crisis over the last almost three years now, and [he] very much values his advice, candour, leadership, and again looks forward to having him back,” he said.
In a statement released on Saturday, Mr Austin said he was “very glad to be on the mend” and looking forward to returning to the Pentagon “soon,” while admitting that he “could have done a better job ensuring the public was appropriately informed”.
“I commit to doing better,” he said, adding that he took “full responsibility” for what he described as “[his] decisions about disclosure”.
Pentagon Press Secretary Pat Ryder, a US Air Force major general, said on Sunday that Mr Austin “remains hospitalized at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center but is recovering well and in good spirits,” and noted that the Defence Department boss spoke with Mr Biden, Deputy Defence Secretary Kathleen Hicks, and Joint Chiefs chair Gen CQ Brown Jr on Sunday.
“Since resuming his duties on Friday evening, the Secretary has received operational updates and has provided necessary guidance to his team. He has full access to required secure communications capabilities and continues to monitor DoD’s day-to-day operations worldwide,” Gen Ryder added.
Though the secretary of defence is one of the key officials responsible for exercising command and control over the US nuclear arsenal, it’s not known whether top White House or National Security Council officials were aware that Mr Austin was in Walter Reed hospital until late last week.
The White House Situation Room is responsible for keeping track of the location of all Cabinet officials, and the Department of Homeland Security also tracks key officials in the presidential line of succession as part of the Continuity of Government programs that grew out of Cold War-era preparedness measures.
Yet senior official told The Independent that the Situation Room tracking mainly keeps tabs on what city or country a particular Cabinet officer is in, and that tracking is done by having agencies notify the Situation Room of officials’ movements.
Mr Kirby acknowledged that “there is a process” for Situation Room personnel to “get the general location of all the non-White House principals” each morning, calling the tracking “generic” and putting the onus on agencies to keep the White House abreast of that information.
“There was no notification or knowledge at the White House or the National Security Council until Thursday,” he added.
Mr Austin’s absence and apparent failure to inform the White House has incensed Republicans, some of whom have pounced upon the error with calls for the retired general to resign from his civilian leadership post.
New York Representative Elise Stefanik, a top ally of former president Donald Trump, said on Sunday that there needs to be “full accountability” for the error, starting with “the immediate resignation of Secretary Austin and those that lied for him” as well as “a Congressional investigation into this dangerous dereliction of duty”.
Mr Trump, who is currently running for the GOP nomination in this year’s general election, said in a post on his Truth Social platform that Mr Austin should be sacked for what the disgraced ex-president called “improper professional conduct and dereliction of duty”.
