The secrecy surrounding Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin’s hospitalizations in late 2023 and early 2024 “increased unnecessarily” the risks to US national security, the Pentagon’s inspector general concluded in a report released on Wednesday.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s hospitalization scandal last year increased national security risks and should have been handled better, according to a new report from the Pentagon’s watchdog. The Office of the Inspector General for the Department of Defense (OIG),

The inspector general’s investigation details exasperation among key aides to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin as he refused to disclose the extent of his medical crisis last year.

The Pentagon's inspector general concluded that the secrecy surrounding Lloyd Austin's hospitalizations increased national security risks