The White House has announced that it will conduct a review of the process and procedures surrounding Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin's recent hospital stay, in an effort to ensure transparency and accountability. Austin has come under bipartisan criticism for not promptly notifying President Biden and other top officials about his admission to the ICU on New Year's Day.
The sequence of events reveals that Austin had an undisclosed elective procedure on December 22nd, and was discharged the following day. However, on January 1st, he experienced severe pain, prompting an ambulance to rush him to the ICU at Walter Reed Medical Center. Surprisingly, it wasn't until January 2nd that the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was informed about Austin's hospitalization, and Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks assumed some of his duties on the same day. Shockingly, Hicks was not informed of Austin's hospitalization until January 4th, the same day President Biden was notified.
