Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Thursday testified that he didn't intend to keep his January cancer hospitalization a secret, instead blaming a “breakdown in notifications.”
“I never intended to keep my hospitalization from the White House or from anybody else,” Austin said before the House Armed Services Committee.
“I want to be very clear. There was never any lapse in authorities or in command and control. At all times, either I or the deputy secretary was in a position to conduct the duties of my office,” Austin said. “But we did have a breakdown in notifications during my January stay at Walter Reed [Medical Center], and that is sharing my location and why I was here.”
The defense secretary acknowledged that he should have been more transparent with top officials and the public about his cancer diagnosis and vowed to make institutional changes.
“We did not handle this right, and I did not handle it right,” Austin said. “It's not enough for me to pledge to do better; the system must be postured better to make the appropriate notifications when authorities are transferred. And my staff must be ready to carry all of this out.”
