Deputy Defense Secretary Didn’t Know Lloyd Austin Was Hospitalized When She Filled In for Him
The fallout from Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin’s secret hospital stay just keeps getting worse, with reports from CNN and Politico this weekend uncovering new details of Pentagon brass left out of the loop and blame games behind the scenes.
When the deputy secretary of defense was first asked to take on some of Secretary Austin’s duties on Jan. 2, she was not informed that the Pentagon head was hospitalized, according to a Sunday CNN report.
Kathleen Hicks, who was on vacation in Puerto Rico at the time, did not learn the truth until Thursday, a full three days after Austin was transported to the intensive care unit at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, to treat complications from a surgery.