Four days after Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin was admitted to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for “complications” from an “elective medical procedure,” the Pentagon notified Congress.
The fact that the Secretary had been hospitalized since New Year’s Day was disclosed Friday in a press statement.
Maj. Gen. Patrick S. Ryder, the Pentagon press secretary, declined to elaborate on the source of Mr. Austin’s medical issues, citing patient privacy. But in a statement on Friday, General Ryder said the defense secretary, who is 70, is “recovering well and is expecting to resume his full duties today.”
During Mr. Austin’s time in the hospital, Kathleen Hicks, the deputy defense secretary, “was prepared to act for and exercise the powers of the secretary, if required,” General Ryder said in the statement.
There is no word on what the “elective medical procedure”…
