WASHINGTON – The White House promised on President Joe Biden’s first day in office that the new administration would bring transparency and trust back to government.
But the secrecy surrounding Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s hospitalization is casting doubt on whether the administration is living up to that promise.
Austin was hospitalized Jan. 1 for what the Pentagon has described as complications after an elective medical procedure, but the Defense Department didn’t alert the White House about Austin’s condition until Thursday, three days after he was admitted. Neither the Pentagon nor Austin has provided any details about why he was in the hospital or what medical procedure he had.
Austin’s decision to keep his hospitalization and serious illness a secret, even from the White House and his top deputy, has whipped up a political firestorm that officials say has damaged the Pentagon’s credibility and raised questions about the administration’s commitment to transparency.
“Heads have to roll,” said Brett Bruen, a former diplomat and expert in crisis communications who worked in the White House under President Barack Obama. “This is not a minor miscommunication. It’s about the confidence that our national security structure has in its leadership and that the leadership is acting in a transparent way.”
Asked Monday whether Biden was considering firing Austin, White House spokesman John Kirby said Biden values his advice and leadership and looks forward to having him back on the job.
“There is no plan for anything other than for Secretary Austin to stay in the job,” Kirby said.
Austin, 70, remained at Walter Reed and was recovering well from his still-undisclosed illness, according to his spokesman, Air Force Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder.
Austin spent days in ICU, and many at Pentagon were unaware
Several Defense Department officials contacted by USA TODAY said they were unaware of Austin’s illness until late Friday when the Pentagon issued a statement. Austin was hospitalized Jan. 1 after complications from an elective procedure sickened him so severely that he spent four days in the intensive care unit at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.
One senior Defense Department official called the controversy an exercise in unforced errors. Ryder didn’t issue a statement until late Friday that Austin had been hospitalized. That announcement did not disclose his stay in intensive care or that the White House hadn’t been informed for three days that he was in the hospital.
On Sunday, Defense Department officials told USA TODAY that Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks, who had been standing in for Austin as required by law, hadn’t been told for days that he had been hospitalized.
Austin acknowledged in a statement released Saturday that he “could have done a better job ensuring the public was appropriately informed” about his illness. “I commit to doing better,” he said.
But the steady drip of alarming news about the health of the defense secretary, second in the chain of command to the president, has eroded faith in the military, the senior Pentagon official said. It’s a how-to guide on dissolving public trust in the organization, the official said, branding it lying through omission.
The situation astounded Peter Feaver, a political science professor at Duke University and an expert in civilian-military relations.
“This is a baffling episode, and while there is clearly much we still do not know, it is hard to see how any of the new revelations will make this better than what it looks like now: a case of really bad judgment,” Feaver said Sunday in an email.
“The apparent decision to keep the White House in the dark is the most baffling aspect of all, since Cabinet officers have a duty to keep their boss informed at all times about their movements.”
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For Biden, the timing of Austin’s secrecy is particularly problematic.
Biden entered the White House three years ago promising not only transparency and truth in government but pledging that his administration would avoid the chaos of former President Donald Trump’s administration.
On Friday, just hours after learning of Austin’s illness, Biden delivered a major campaign speech in which he warned that democracy itself will be on the ballot in this fall’s election, when he is expected to again face Trump for the presidency. Biden denounced Trump as a threat to the country’s founding principles and promised that, if reelected, he would honor “the sacred cause of democracy.”
Lack of candor seen as national security risk
What’s more, Israel and Hamas are at war in the Middle East, the U.S. and its allies have warned Iran-backed Houthi rebels to cease their attacks on commercial ships in the Red Sea, and the Biden administration is pushing Congress to approve a military aid package for Ukraine in its war against Russia.
Austin’s decision to keep Biden out of the loop raises questions not only about the administration’s commitment to transparency but about whether Biden has control of his Cabinet, said Scott Jennings, a Republican strategist who worked in the White House under President George W. Bush.
“When the command structure of the United States armed forces appears to be broken down and disconnected from the commander in chief, I think people are going to have pretty serious questions about it.”
Bruen said the lack of candor about Austin’s illness underscores that the Pentagon and the White House National Security Council operate in a culture of secrecy. “That is, quite frankly, detrimental to our national security system and just plain dangerous,” he said.
It’s also the latest example of how the administration has fallen short over the past three years of its promise of transparency, said Bruen, president of the Global Situation Room, a public affairs agency.
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Other examples, Bruen said, are the administration’s failure to level with the American people on the reasons for its withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan and the State Department’s sparse summary of phone calls and meetings with foreign leaders, which he said often read “like a Hallmark card in how meaningless they are.”
“There’s a false belief that they can brush this stuff under the rug, they can try to blow past some of the blowback,” Bruen said. “Those of us who’ve raised questions along the way are often tarred and feathered by folks in the administration because we have been pushing for them to live up to their promises. They, I think, do a better job with the speeches and the slogans than they do when it comes to the actions.”
Will it add fuel to the fire for Joe Biden?
The White House insists the administration has not abandoned its commitment to transparency.
“From his first day in office, President Biden has made transparency to the American people a centerpiece of the way his administration operates. That has not changed,” said Adrienne Watson, spokeswoman for the National Security Council.
Biden appreciates Austin taking ownership of his actions and pledging to improve transparency going forward, Watson said. Biden “continues to have full trust and confidence in the secretary,” she said.
Austin’s refusal to acknowledge his illness, and the Pentagon’s delay in announcing it, will almost certainly bring congressional inquiries, Feaver said.
“At a political level, this adds fuel to the fire of Biden critics and allows them to distract attention away from the revelations about more serious derelictions of duty under the previous administration,” Feaver said.
Michael Collins covers the White House. Tom Vanden Brook covers the Pentagon. Follow Collins on X, formerly Twitter, @mcollinsNEWS and Vandenbrook @tvandenbrook.
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