House committee seeks testimony from Austin on hospitalization

The House Armed Services Committee on Thursday asked Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III to testify next month about why he and his aides kept secret from the White House for several days that he had been hospitalized after complications from prostate cancer surgery.

The committee's chairman, Representative Mike D. Rogers, Republican of Alabama, said that “Congress must understand what happened and who made decisions to prevent the disclosure of a Cabinet secretary's whereabouts.”

Mr. Rogers said he had scheduled a hearing for Feb. 14 after accusing Mr. Austin of dodging key questions about the secretary's hospitalization during a recent phone call between the two men.

“Specifically, I am alarmed that you refused to answer whether you had instructed your staff not to inform the President of the United States or anyone else of your hospitalization,” Mr. Rogers said in a speech. letter to Mr. Austin that the committee made public on Thursday evening. “Unfortunately, this leads me to believe that information is being withheld from Congress.”

Mr. Austin was released from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, on Monday and was working from home while he recovered. Top Pentagon officials were keen to try to put the episode behind them, trying to project a back-to-work image for their boss, albeit from home, by making statements he made this week spoke by telephone with his colleagues from Ukraine and Israel. .

But it is unlikely that the problem will disappear quickly. Lawmakers and senior administration officials say Mr. Austin's handling of the case has damaged his credibility with President Biden and Congress and raises questions about his department's overall competency in handling the self-made crisis. All of that is now the subject of a 30-day internal department investigation, as well as an investigation by the Defense Department's inspector general.

Mr. Austin, a 70-year-old retired Army general, was in severe pain and was rushed by ambulance to Walter Reed on Jan. 1. He was placed in intensive care after complications from a prostate removal surgery he underwent on December 22.

But several top Pentagon officials did not learn of the secretary's hospitalization until the next day, January 2. The White House was not notified until January 4, a major breach of protocol at the highest national security level. Complicating matters further, neither Pentagon nor White House officials learned until Jan. 9 that Austin had been diagnosed with cancer in early December.