Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin may be convalescing at home now after a two-week hospital stay to receive treatment for an infection following surgery for prostate cancer, but details about his secret hospital stay that left even President Joe Biden in the dark continue to emerge — and those new details, revealed in the 911 call placed to rush Austin to the hospital on January 1, show how he and his aides sought to keep his condition a secret from the very beginning.
Obtained by the Daily Beast through a public records request, the 911 call placed as Austin realized he could no longer remain at home shows the intent to keep the situation under wraps as the Secretary of Defense was carted off to Walter Reed where he remained in secrecy for days without even his commander in chief knowing.
One heck of a cover up from Lloyd Austin's team and the Biden admin: pic.twitter.com/o2iK7iPt5L
— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) January 16, 2024
According to the Daily Beast's report, the coverup that saw the American people and senior Biden administration officials including the president and secretary of state left in the dark was "well-known among his close aides" (emphasis added):
The aide to U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin who made a 911 call to request an ambulance for the top official early this month requested that the dispatchers work to be “subtle” when they arrived at his residence, according to an audio recording of the Jan. 1 911 call exclusively obtained by The Daily Beast.
“Can I ask—can the ambulance not show up with lights and sirens? Uhm, we’re trying to remain a little subtle,” the aide said, according to the recording, which The Daily Beast obtained through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request in the state of Virginia.
The dispatcher responded that the ambulance could do that, noting that “usually when they turn into a residential neighborhood, they'll turn them off.” She added that the ambulance is required by law to run the sirens and lights on main streets, such as Georgetown Pike and Leesburg Pike.
The audio of the call, which has not previously been reported, reveals new details about the Secretary of Defense’s emergency, and suggests that the effort to keep his ailment secret was well-known among his close aides.