As 2024 dawned last week, the Red Sea boiled. Iranian-sponsored Houthi terrorists targeted U.S. Navy vessels and commercial ships. Hamas’ war on Israel roared on. The Russia–Ukraine military quagmire festered. And a record 300,000 plus illegal aliens invaded America’s southern “border.”
While these global crises unfolded, where were America’s top national security leaders?
President Joe Biden, commander-in-chief of the U.S. Armed Forces, sunned himself in St. Croix, oblivious as to the whereabouts of his Pentagon chief.
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin was in the Intensive Care Unit at Walter Reed Army Hospital, enduring complications from prostate-cancer surgery, the “elective procedure” that he claimed went awry. Austin did not tell the president his location for four days — from Jan. 1, when Austin arrived by ambulance, and Jan. 5. Biden did not know that his top defense official had prostate cancer between Austin’s Dec. 22 surgery and its public revelation on Jan. 9, an 18-day span. Furthermore, Austin reportedly told colleagues that he was working from home. This was a lie.
Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks was on vacation in Puerto Rico. According to ABC News’ timeline, Hicks “assumes some secretary-level duties, which the Pentagon says is standard procedure, but she is unaware of Austin’s condition. She’s equipped with secure communications on her holiday, but no one has told her she’s the top authority at the Pentagon.” As NBC News headlined it: “Deputy learned of defense secretary’s hospitalization 2 days after taking over his duties.”
The civilian secretaries and military chiefs of the Air Force, Army, and Navy had no clue that Austin was in dry dock.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken did not know that Austin was sidelined.
National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan also was unaware of Secretary Lloyd AWOL’s absence.
Even as Iran-backed proxy forces launched the latest of 127 attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria since Oct. 17, no one saw that Austin was an invisible man. After a day or two, shouldn’t one or two of these officials have asked — in person or on a Zoom call — “Hey, where’s Lloyd?”
Or did such meetings not occur, never mind today’s Halloween parade of foreign-policy horrors?
In 2024’s greatest understatement so far, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told journalists at the White House yesterday that this situation has created a “challenge to credibility.”
Even worse, “It’s a violation of the federal statute,” the U.S. Senate Armed Service Committee’s chief Republican, Roger Wicker of Mississippi, told Fox Business Channel host Larry Kudlow. Wicker refers to 5 U.S. Code § 3345, the Vacancies Reform Act of 1998. (RELATED: US Secretary of Defense Goes AWOL)
“The statute says not only let this be known up and down the chain [of command] but also make sure Congress is notified,” Wicker added. “It’s not only common sense. It’s actually required by the law.” Instead, Secretary AWOL kept these officials in the dark.
According to a March 1999 Justice Department memorandum, “Under the Vacancies Reform Act, a vacancy arises when a relevant officer ‘dies, resigns, or is otherwise unable to perform the functions and duties of the office.’” The DOJ guidance continued, “In floor debate, Senators said, by way of example, that an officer would be ‘otherwise unable to perform the functions and duties of the office’ if he or she were fired, imprisoned, or sick.”
A half-week in intensive care qualifies as “sick.”
“So the President didn’t know about this until January 4, you know, three days into this emergency hospital stay while Austin’s in ICU,” Jeff Clark of the Center for Renewing America told Steve Bannon on Monday’s edition of War Room. “Blinken didn’t know about it. Jake Sullivan didn’t know about it. It’s totally inexcusable. And then you come to find out that the Deputy Secretary of Defense was on vacation in Puerto Rico during this time, and they didn’t even tell her why she was assuming some of his duties…. And then they talked to the [Pentagon] Chief of Staff, and the Chief of Staff was out sick. So now they’re trying to deflect blame onto her and say she was the one who failed to tell the White House.”
Candidate Joe Biden promised to return normalcy to Washington and put a team of adults in charge after the supposedly infantile Trump years. Instead, Biden is now the milk monitor at a giant kindergarten on Pennsylvania Avenue.
Deroy Murdock is a Manhattan-based Fox News contributor.
