As the ramifications of Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III’s failure to disclose his cancer surgery and subsequent hospitalization continued to reverberate through Capitol Hill on Wednesday, Senate Republicans opened a new inquiry into the matter, but lawmakers largely fell short of calling for his removal.
Austin has been hospitalized since Jan. 1 due to complications from surgery to treat prostate cancer, his doctors disclosed Tuesday. But lawmakers were roiled by the revelation that the White House, Congress and many top military leaders weren’t informed of Austin’s initial Dec. 22 procedure, or of his subsequent hospitalization until days after his readmission to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.
In the second such congressional inquiry in as many days, Senate Armed Services Committee ranking member Roger Wicker, R-Miss., led all 11 GOP panel members in a letter to Austin, seeking a full accounting of Austin’s previous two weeks, and the role that Pentagon staff may have played in delaying the transfer of information.
