The 30-day-review undertaken by the Department of Defense following Secretary Austin's secret hospitalization and stint in the ICU that saw days pass before the president or other Pentagon officials were made aware of the Defense chief's incapacitation has turned up what was to be expected: zero wrongdoing.
A three-page review of the declassified summary was made public by the Pentagon on Monday afternoon, including an "Overview of the Review," timeline of events, and "observations" of the scandal that brought to light a serious lack of communication between the Secretary of Defense and commander-in-chief.
The DoD's quite sanitized retelling of events — produced after the review undertaken by "career civilian staff whose foremost priority was assessing the health of our institution and the strength of our chain of command" — failed to include the fact that Austin's aides asked 911 dispatchers to have first responders avoid using sirens when arriving at the secretary's home to whisk him to Walter Reed:
On January 1, 2024, Secretary Austin worked on some official matters from home in the morning. In the afternoon, Secretary Austin began experiencing nausea and pain in his abdomen, hip and leg. He was transported to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center the evening of January 1, by ambulance, and was admitted that evening. Secretary Austin’s security and communications personnel remained nearby him at all times.
As Townhall reported previously, "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."
"Can I ask—can the ambulance not show up with lights and sirens? Uhm, we’re trying to remain a little subtle,” an aide to Austin, according to the 911 tape obtained by The Daily Beast, told dispatchers.
The apparent cover your you-know-what document seeks to make clear, repeatedly, that at all times the chain of command was preserved, and everyone was ready to act if necessary — even while admitting even Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks "was not notified of Secretary Austin’s hospitalization" when authority was transferred to her as a result of Austin's incapacitation in the Critical Care Unit.
Instead of accepting any responsibility for working to keep Austin's emergency transport to the hospital quiet and subsequently failing — for days — to notify his deputy, the president, and other people in the chain of command, the Pentagon's review scapegoated others:
The Secretary’s staff was limited in three significant ways. First, medical privacy laws prohibited medical providers from candid sharing of medical information with the Secretary’s staff. Second, for privacy reasons, his staff were hesitant to pry or share any information that they did learn. Third, the Secretary’s medical situation remained in flux and as long as he remained in the Critical Care Unit, timely secured communications could not be assured.
Is it not a problem worth admitting that "timely secured communications" were not a sure thing? No? Got it.
Even in admitting, "as hindsight has shown, the process for making decisions to transfer the Secretary’s authority could and should be improved," the Pentagon's review concluded that "nothing examined during this review demonstrated any indication of ill intent or an attempt to obfuscate."
So, yet again, a federal entity has been embroiled in a scandal, investigated itself, and found no wrongdoing. Funny how that works.
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