Secretary Of Defense Lloyd Austin Kept Secret Hospitalization, Incapacitation From WH and Own Top Staffers
“Austin’s job appears safe — at least for the moment, but pressure is growing within the administration and on Capitol Hill for someone to lose their job.”
Biden’s Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, was apparently incapacitated for several days and failed to let anyone, including the White House or even his deputy who had to assume his duties, know he was incapable of doing his job.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken — in the Biden administration's first public comments on the scandal — says he "wasn't aware" Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was incapacitated for much of last week pic.twitter.com/LJrrtRXf76
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) January 7, 2024
BREAKING REPORT: Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks WAS NOT TOLD Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was in ICU [despite taking on his duties as Pentagon chief.]
The hospitalization of Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, which remained undisclosed, was not communicated to his deputy… pic.twitter.com/YzBLBEdAcd
— Chuck Callesto (@ChuckCallesto) January 7, 2024
The Pentagon did not tell President Joe Biden and other top officials about Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s hospitalization for three days, three U.S. officials said.
National security adviser Jake Sullivan and other senior White House aides didn’t know of Austin’s Jan. 1 hospitalization until the Defense Department sent over word Jan. 4, two other U.S. officials said. Sullivan informed Biden shortly after DOD’s Thursday notification.
The officials said it was highly unlikely that Austin conveyed word to Biden privately before Sullivan’s briefing. “If Jake didn’t know, no way the president knew,” one of them said. “Who would have told him of Austin’s condition if not Jake? And if someone did tell the president, Jake would’ve been his first call.”
. . . . But the news of Austin’s situation came as a shock to all White House staff as they were unaware the Pentagon boss was dealing with complications following an elective medical procedure, the officials said. National Security Council staffers were surprised it took the Pentagon so long to let them know of Austin’s status. The Pentagon didn’t make the information public until Friday evening, notifying Congress about 15 minutes before releasing a public statement.
“This should not have happened this way,” said one of the U.S. officials. The NSC and Pentagon declined comment.
When I worked in OSD for Rumsfeld the SecDef and DepSecDef could not travel at the same time so that one was always in the Pentagon and there was no risk of the chain of command being interrupted.
The idea that the SecDef would be incapacitated and not inform his deputy or the…
— Marc Thiessen 🇺🇸❤️🇺🇦🇹🇼🇮🇱 (@marcthiessen) January 7, 2024
INSANE behavior from the Pentagon
It claims Deputy SecDef Kathleen Hicks was “prepared to act” while SecDef Lloyd Austin was in the ICU
…but Hicks was ON VACATION in PUERTO RICO the whole time! pic.twitter.com/9L1mWG58Gn
— John Hasson (@SonofHas) January 6, 2024
BREAKING: Secretay of Defense Lloyd Austin is still hospitalized and does not have a specific release date according to the Pentagon. pic.twitter.com/N9kEHUxZUX
— Shadow of Ezra (@ShadowofEzra) January 7, 2024
Calls are growing not only for an explanation but for his dismissal.
Unacceptable & dangerous. @SecDef is a key member of the U.S. national security team & has a critical role in our most sensitive military & nuclear protocols.
Sec. Austin must come to SASC immediately, explain why this happened & who helped keep it from our nation’s leaders. https://t.co/728WJ30pxs
— Rick Scott (@SenRickScott) January 6, 2024
Ok – if this is true the Deputy Secretary, the SecDef’s Chief of Staff and the White House liaison should be fired immediately. cc: @MorganOrtagus https://t.co/rcNMlZd2j8
— Kevin Curran (@kevinhcurran) January 6, 2024
Austin must be fired.
The Lloyd Austin fallout is growing: ‘Someone’s head has to roll’ – POLITICO https://t.co/P67YDO9ZaL
— Laura Ingraham (@IngrahamAngle) January 7, 2024
Politico reports in a separate article:
Austin’s failure to inform his most senior advisers, congressional leaders and even President Joe Biden of his hospitalization last week due to complications from a medical procedure has erupted into a controversy that’s left senior White House and Pentagon officials infuriated and befuddled. Some Republicans quickly called for investigations or even for Austin to be disciplined or fired.
Joint Chiefs Chair Gen. C.Q. Brown was not informed of Austin’s situation until Tuesday, the day after his hospitalization, a senior Defense Department official told POLITICO on Sunday. Even Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks, who assumed some of his duties while he was in the hospital, did not know his whereabouts until Thursday, a second senior DOD official said after CNN first reported the news.
. . . . The first time Austin and Biden spoke since the secretary’s Monday hospitalization was Saturday evening, a senior administration official said, even as tensions in the Middle East have spiked and the war in Ukraine has intensified. The conversation followed reports, first from POLITICO, that the Pentagon boss waited three days to inform the White House that he was out of commission.
The Pentagon says the delay in notifying senior administration officials about Austin’s hospitalization was partly due to the fact his his chief of staff was also out with her own illness at the same time.
While Austin entered Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on Jan. 1, DOD chief of staff Kelly Magsamen didn’t tell Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks — who has occasionally assumed the duties of her boss — or the White House of the secretary’s status until Jan. 4.
“The secretary’s chief of staff was unable to make notifications before then. She made those notifications on Thursday to the deputy secretary and national security adviser,” confirmed Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder, DOD’s top spokesperson.
The revelation doesn’t explain the full story of the communication breakdown — or why the White House wasn’t notified. Gen. CQ Brown, the Joint Chiefs chair, was made aware of Austin’s status on Tuesday but apparently didn’t tell anyone. Austin also has other aides who could’ve informed relevant officials in Magsamen’s absence.
. . . . “While we do not have a specific date for his release at this time, we will continue to provide updates on the Secretary’s status as they become available,” Ryder said.
Austin’s job appears safe — at least for the moment, but pressure is growing within the administration and on Capitol Hill for someone to lose their job.
“This is basic, sort of subordinate behavior, 101, and the secretary of defense was subordinate to the commander in chief and he failed,” said the second senior DOD official.
Needless to say, people have thoughts.
Sec Def Lloyd Austin will not disclose the "elective procedure" he had that ended with him in the ICU for multiple days.
The same guy who forced all service members to get experimental gene serum injections is now very concerned about health autonomy!
— Jordan Schachtel @ dossier.today (@JordanSchachtel) January 7, 2024
Reporters are more Big Mad that Lloyd Austin is in the hospital without telling anyone than they are at his failures in Afghanistan
Wonder why
— Matthew Foldi (@MatthewFoldi) January 7, 2024
We know as much about Raul Castro’s health as we did about Lloyd Austin’s.
The secrecy is like communism. https://t.co/YbQEo9neDm
— Richard Grenell (@RichardGrenell) January 7, 2024
For those not paying attention: America's SecDef Lloyd Austin disappeared for 4 days, failed to notify the President's staff/NSC of his whereabouts, and was secretly in intensive care at Walter Reed from complications from "minor elective surgery."
And nobody knows wtf happened.
— Jeff Blehar is *BOX OFFICE POISON* (@EsotericCD) January 6, 2024
Turns out, Lloyd Austin wasn’t even running “that outfit over there” this past week. https://t.co/wgbc0H0geW
— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) January 7, 2024
Stunning: The question needs to be asked: Who is in charge of the US Military?
Never in my life have I had to wonder that.
Now with Joe Biden and Lloyd Austin, that’s not a question that is out of bounds. Scary. https://t.co/LXLT1kQPpF
— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) January 7, 2024
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Comments
This just shows that the Pentagon has been being run by middle management over the past few years. Austin is nothing but window dressing for Traitor Joe’s junta, but Austin doesn’t really do anything. That’s probably a good thing, though who knows what whack-jobs are actually running things and it might be that Austin is actually less dangerous to America, being as stupid as he is.
This whole junta is on auto-pilot, evidently. The backroom bosses are happily running things from who knows where and all the people in public view are just retarded marionettes being danced around for public consumption.
How is it even possible that the SecDef could be in surgery and the White House not be immediately informed about it??? How could the SecDef be in ICU and no one knows??? It really isn’t believable. But who would tell such a retarded lie, and for what possible reason? This is all quite insane.
Middle managers appear to be running many divisions of our government nowadays.
That would be a more confidence inspiring explanation than if the A team, whatever that is, is making all these inept moves.
Austin & gay are cut from the same stupid cloth, both demonstrating how bad Affirmative Action became.
They can’t fire 2 Black people before elections, some white dude must pay
The only thing I can figure, where Austin had elective surgery and didn’t want to tell anyone and then was too embarrassed to tell them he had complications after that put him back in the hospital, is that this must have been some tranny surgery or something. Maybe he was getting his johnson cut off, to start the transition off, or he was getting fitted for breast implants. Something like that.
That is really the only scenario where any of this could actually make a little sense.
Oh, please…!
I suspect he had gastric bypass surgery.
I was thinking some sort of plastic surgery. I mean, how many face lifts have Biden and Pelosi had? Why not him, too?
WOW. My prediction turned out to be incorrect….because even with this cast of characters, never in my wildest imagination would I believe that SecDef (or any major Cabinet Secretary) would even attempt to keep a cancer diagnosis from the public. I thought for sure when they said ‘elective’ surgery they meant a surgery that wasn’t a treatment vector for CANCER. These people are rotten to the core, every last one of them.
He got monkey pox from the military base drag queen show.
“Elective Surgery” could be quadruple bypass. It is elective only because he didn’t have a heart attack first.
Good point. And that sort of surgery would answer my question about why a hospital was willing to to perform an “elective” procedure on a federal holiday. Though that might suggest it was close to being (if not already) no longer really elective.
My husband is googling, and apparently the actual surgery was on 12/22. It sounds like pretty much no-one even knew about that issue.
I can’t imagine not telling my boss that I was sick on a day when I’m supposed to be at work. Even if just a call that I feel like crud and am wandering over to the ER. We have some time-sensitive stuff that can cost the company money if delayed, so yeah, I’m going to make sure they know so it can get done. And our responsibilities are a lot less serious than SecDef’s.
And No Call No Show will get you fired in virtually every civilian job.
Keep your shirt on.
Under Joe Biden and Alejandro Mayorkas, the Secretary of Defense is officially a “nonessential worker.”
Yes, that’s a possibility, and we’ll continue to wonder and to ask because no one at the Pentagon, or the SecDef office, or the White House is saying anything.
What “elective” surgery? What complications? What happened?
Yes, but I sure wouldn’t call bypass surgery “minor”.
This is not a man who needs breast implants.
(Forgive me, I’d seen this somewhere earlier today.)
->)Pronoun-exchange surgery.
Amateur hour. I’ve never seen anything like this.
Stick around. They’re only just getting started, really. You ain’t seen nothing, yet!
I fear you are correct.
They’ve got less than a year to think up a Big Finale!
I hope it involves Joe on fire, riding Kamala like a unicycle.
TY Fuzzy. I think he will just get a pass. Rules and norms do not apply to POC. Not anymore.
The big question was alluded to, where do you draw the line between the public’s right to know about leaders, v confidentiality. The 900lb gorilla is what happened to him? Was he gelded?
This was a comment on X, obviously there was a huge buzz.
“When I was a Navy LT and 3rd in command of my destroyer, the XO went on leave and I knew where the Captain was every minute of every day.”
https://x.com/awstar11/status/1744123074935763260?s=20
Talk about a threat to our republic. Sheesh. This seems so ridiculous that it is hard to believe. Every time I think I have adjusted to clown world I get surprised like this.
The adults are back in charge, guys.
Not just theater. Frightening reminder that the corrupt clown Biden is not really in charge.
It’s revealed on his time card as a sick day.
I thought he put it down as “work at home”.
If Austin can oversee the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal including the droning of an innocent family with a half-dozen children without getting fired, then I suspect he’ll survive this. Whatever it is a fat, black man who faithfully advances a WOKE agenda has to do to get fired by a Democrat president, Austin likely hasn’t done it.
In any event, while it’s been a long time since I’ve carefully read Goldwater-Nichols and the other sections of the US that deal with our command-in-control authority, I really find it difficult to believe that what he did didn’t violate US statutory law. This was perhaps not a criminal violation (or perhaps it was). But, I suspect it was still a violation of the written law…and that would be a plainly Impeachable offense.
He is a DEI figure head. I am not a military person, but a friend of mine from work was (Vietnam).. and he told me about a creature called a REMF.
Those guys are in charge, and it is a disaster.
Hah! Vaguely familiar (I’m of a certain age, too) so looked it up.
On the mark!
Black and White Resolution:
He should be fired!
Austin should have been fired after the Afghanistan withdrawal debacle. If that wasn’t enough, then this incident should be the final nail in his coffin.
It almost seems like Austin’s job is to preside over the decline US military power. If so, he is very effective at that task and will likely continue as SecDef.
No, he should have resigned after Biden went ahead and did what all of his military people told him not to do. The fact that he and Miley did not resign tells us all we need to know about them.
The bureaucrats are out of control. We see this when they testify in front of congress. How long would a loose canon like this work for Trump? For that matter, what general would tolerate a key report keeping them in the dark? Austin should fire himself.
Don’t be so mesmerized by Trump. He was in charge and did nothing about it when Fauci and his blind followers permanently damaged the economy and closed schools for much too long.
Trump was 100% correct that he had absolutely no control over what is fundamentally a state’s right.
I don’t agree with Trump 100% on all things. But this was not a Trump thing.
Sheesh. TDS much?
The whole fucking US is circling the shitter and you are bitching about how he didn’t stop schools from closing.
You seem to be making the case that an individual State possess the authority to suspend the Constitution. That’s a disturbing argument.
What could Trump have done? Direct the Civil Rights division of the DoJ supplemented by US Attorneys offices to intervene in CT to stop and/or limit the suppression of fundamental liberties by forcing these folks to ID some sort of limiting principle instead of sitting back and allowing them to run wild.
When a State or their political subdivision tells folks they can’t go to Church, to a funeral, have a backyard BBQ without permission that’s a big flipping problem. When they shut down the economy and education systems (FWIW most State Constitutions require education) not only without evidence but in spite of the existing evidence that’s not acceptable.
For whatever reason Trump went with the advice of Fauci and Birx and Collins to shut down the economy once they had gotten their nose under the tent with ’15 days to flatten the curve’. Trump doubled down on this backing when he went after the political leadership in jurisdictions who were ‘reopening too soon’.
States are in charge of public health, per the Constitution. That includes measures like quarantine. They can do stupid things, but it’s not some new usurpation of powers.
Nice attempt to straw man. The States who violated the Constitutional rights of the Citizens did indeed claim new, expansive powers to do so and without any limiting principle. If you refute this please provide a historical example of the same proportion, duration and scale as the Covid mania induced power grab by some States and localities in those same States and localities.
Simply shrugging your shoulders in a ‘whatcha gonna do’ manner in response usurpation of our Constitutional liberties seems like a bad idea to me. That’s what the Courts exist for. Instead of using them to push against and at least mitigate the impacts via forcing the Fauci Fascists to articulate a meaningful limiting principle many including the Trump WH just meekly surrendered as if lock downs were inevitable and we should simply cede our liberties for ‘the greater good’ at the behest of our bureaucracy.
Nice try Chief. But I recall nearly every court (up to and including the SC) stepping on the toes of Trump and anyone else who wanted to stop the madness.
I don’t have the time, the inclination, or the desire, to enumerate the nonsense that was occurring during that timeframe.
Suffice it to say that the courts were not friendly to freedom loving people.
You act as if I agree with the lockdowns and other BS. I didn’t and I don’t. But that does not erase the fact that citizens tried to overcome the tyranny, to their detriment.
Hang on. Several issues here.
1. States Rights argument where you seem to be telling us an individual State may overcome our individual liberties.
2. That DJT as POTUS was impotent to do anything.
3. Glossing over Trump’s cheerleading the lock downs, going so far as to criticize political figures at home and abroad who opposed continuing heavy handed lockdown past Easter of ’20.
4. Ignoring the whole Covid mania b/c other issues arose; ‘the US is circling the shitter and you are bitching about how he didn’t stop schools from closing’.
Trump didn’t cause Covid. He is however responsible for Federal response to Covid. That response was….suboptimal at best.
Trillions added to Fed Govt debt, an entire generational cohort of Students whose education was irreparably stunted and whose effects will linger for 50 years or more, a bureaucracy that was able to impose its will over the Citizens All these things among others can be laid at the feet of DJT.
Once the evidence became clear that shutdowns were detrimental to the economy and education, Trump should have spoken up rather than following and promoting Fauci’s advice like a baby duck trailing along behind its mother. Maybe he couldn’t have fired Fauci but he sure could have sidetracked him.
Al Sharpton’s gonna have his hands full what with Harvard and now the Pentagon…
You win my internet for today.
Dereliction of duty across the board in this administration.
God help us!
But, but, but…. We were told that the adults were back in charge
They didn’t tell us it was the adults from Titicut Follies.
Don’t be so mesmerized by Trump. He was in charge and did nothing about it when Fauci and his blind followers permanently damaged the economy and closed schools for much too long.
Austin for Gay with a couple of bureaucrats or college professors to be named later
What is everyone so up in arms about?
I am sure that his wife called into the Pentagon to tell them he won’t be in for a couple of days.
Everything was covered. Gen. Li Zuocheng of the People’s Liberation Army knew where Austin was at all times. Austin, Milley, and the whole gang of Pentagon “cool kids” all have him listed in their iPhones as their emergency contact.
I’m sure you all share my relief to learn that he is in good spirits.
Replace him. Resign or be fired. Its time for him to go. He has outlived his usefulness to the organization.
Well, he’s very useful to China…
Diversity hires are a dime a dozen, go get another one they are all the same.
If Biden can get away with being checked out most of the time, why not the SecDef??
Court martial? Firing squad? Walk the plank? Keel hauling? Brig? Reduction in rank? Restricted to base? Dishonorable discharge? Thirty days bread and water? Oh but wait…Bideless doesn’t even know who he is or what he does!
Not sure what it really says about the Biden regime when Sec. of Defense Llyod Austin can disappear for at least a week without anyone noticing that he’s gone and subordinates are performing his duties in his absence. But it can’t be good. Especially in light of all that’s happening across the globe these days.
He looks like a disgruntled bus driver.
When finally told of Austin’s hospitalization, Old Joe probably said, “Who’s Lloyd Austin”?
Actually, he said, “I hope he gets better soon! Sea Hunt is my favorite show!”
And none of them be missed.
Probably just wanted to keep the transition surgeries private.
“The Death of Stalin” is a training film for them.
Amazing that people use every post to bash President Trump…
What’s most telling is that nobody even noticed his absence. That means whatever job he’s doing, it’s having absolutely zero effect on anything else and he may even be there. But I didn’t expect anything better than someone put in his place by a pedophile
Did no one notice OR did no one say anything – including the media – because they’re all ‘company men?’ My guess it’s the later not the former. Reporters who works specific Cabinet beats – like State or Defense – notice when a Cabinet Secretary is out-of-pocket for more than a week. I suspect many, if not all, of the reporters understood that he was not at work and yet all decided to keep their mouths shut because they don’t want to damage Biden.
What should really bother people is that someone who is 6th in the Presidential Succession line was in the hospital and no-one bothered to tell the President or his cabinet. If anyone has doubts about the deep state thinking, rightly it seems, that they run things and the elected officials can be ignored this should serve as a wake up call. Many heads including Austin’s should be on the immediate block
LOL,
Russian Claim: Austin Dead In Ukraine
https://www.whatdoesitmean.com/index4490.htm
Immediately prior to the shock announcement that Secretary of Defense Austin was in critical condition in a hospital intensive care unit, this report notes, Russia conducted massive missile strikes throughout Ukraine, after which it was reported: “Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin was allegedly killed in Kyiv on January 3 when Russian cruise missiles peltered a command bunker where Austin and Lieutenant General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, commander in chief of the Ukrainian Army, met secretly to discuss mounting an asymmetrical offensive to “bring Vladimir Putin to his knees”, claims a Russian FSB source…Austin and a bevy of Ukrainian brass were tucked away in what they thought was a secure military command center 20 feet beneath the streets of Pecheskry District in central Kyiv”—is a claim of Secretary of Defense Austin’s death attributed to so-called FSB agent Andrei Zakharov, who in factual reality is a journalist for British state broadcaster BBC, about whom it was previously revealed in 2022: “A Russian court has suspended prominent investigative journalist Andrei Zakharov’s “foreign agent” status pending his dispute of the restrictive designation, his employer BBC Russia reported Tuesday”—and this claim was made at the same time the British press began pumping out articles like “HOTEL BLITZ British Journalist Among 17 Wounded In ‘Deliberate’ Missile Attack On Hotel In Ukraine After Russia Vowed Revenge”.
As to why the British intelligence services would release propaganda about Secretary of Defense Austin being killed by a Russian missile strike in Ukraine, this report continues, has its origins in the world’s most powerful private intelligence organization Stratfor (aka “The shadow CIA”) branding the socialist Obama-Biden Regime overthrow of the democratically elected Ukrainian government in 2014 as “The most blatant coup in history”—a blatant coup accomplished by blaming the Ukrainian government for deliberately firing upon and killing dozens of protesters, but on 18 October 2023, the only trial examining what really happened concluded by throwing out all of the manufactured evidence of this false flag event—and with the Ukrainian peoples now knowing the truth, world-renowned American international expert Gordon Hahn, in his just released open letter “CRISIS POLITICS IN UKRAINE: Regime Split, Pre-Coup, Pre-Revolutionary Conditions”, grimly assessed: “Kiev is now gripped by crisis politics…With the Ukraine’s defense lines and army in slow-motion collapse and extreme discontent among top military commanders and across the political elite, Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskiy is fighting for his political and personal survival…More importantly, the stakes could not be higher for the Maidan regime’s coalition of nationalists, neofascist, corruptionaires, new oligarchs, and the occasional republican…Meanwhile, the young Ukrainian state, based on still poorly consolidated quasi-republican institutions and a nationalist ideology, is at risk of disintegration, dissolution, and even disappearance…It’s surrounded by growing threats: the Russian army, angry Ukrainian soldiers and commanders, Kiev’s financial and economic insolvency and dissipation, popular desperation, and the risk of palace or military coups, even a new ‘Galician’ civil war”.
Lloyd austin powers is groovy, according to cringe jean pierre.
Lloyd Austin, a man barely alive. We can rebuild him, make him better.
In his case, that would require only $6.
Speaking of Lee Majors, I saw a story a few days ago that they are doing a remake of
The Fall Guys
I shudder to think …
Markie Post and Heather Thomas will probably be replaced with fat trannies or midgets. Lee Majors’ role will undoubtedly be changed from stuntman to studio DEI vice president chick.
Actually, I think Austin’s timing is perfect. He can resign as Sec Def and head right over to Harvard to over Gay’s office. Austin is exactly the kind of replacement Harvard is looking for. And then Harvard can start claiming they are all “pro-military”. he was destined for the Kennedy School of Communism, anyway. Now, he can be lifted right to the top for no reason … so he’ll feel right at home. And Austin never plagiarized anything … I’m not sure he is even literate. Double-plus good!
Austin’s isn’t a woman so the progressive fascist wouldn’t see him as the best possible replacement for their previous president. Race and sex are the only things that matter to them.
Typical FUBAR
Come on people, no man wants to admit to having one so little that it needs surgery to enlarge. Have some sympathy.
Austin’s worst nightmare is happening; the whole world is talking about his prostate.