Month: January 2024

In a statement released by the Pentagon on Tuesday from his doctors, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was hospitalized to treat an infection that was related to earlier surgery for prostate cancer. The statement from officials at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center provides new details about Austin’s hospitalization, after controversy arose over the Pentagon’s failure to notify the White House and Congress about his condition for several days.

According to the officials, the prostate cancer was detected early last month and Austin underwent a “minimally invasive procedure” on Dec. 22 to treat and cure the cancer. The statement added that Austin was placed under general anesthesia and “recovered uneventfully”, and that the cancer “was detected early, and his prognosis is excellent.”   The statement went on to say that while at home on Jan. 1, Austin began experiencing “nausea with severe abdominal, hip, and leg pain” and was readmitted to Walter Reed, where he was found to have a urinary tract infection and was transferred to the ICU the next day. Further testing revealed abdominal fluid that was obstructing his small intestine, and doctors placed a tube through his nose to drain his stomach.  Austin’s doctor said that “he has progressed steadily throughout his stay. His infection has cleared. He continues to make progress and we anticipate a full recovery although this can be a slow process. During this stay, Secretary Austin never lost consciousness and never underwent general anesthesia.”

Controversy arose after the Pentagon did not tell the White House, lawmakers or Austin’s second in command about his Jan. 1 hospitalization for several days. According to Pentagon press secretary Maj. Gen. Patrick Ryder, several Pentagon officials, including Austin’s chief of staff and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, learned Austin had been hospitalized the next day, on Jan. 2. Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks assumed some of Austin’s duties that day but was not told that he was hospitalized until Jan. 4, when she was in Puerto Rico.

Ryder said Monday that the delay in notifying officials was partly due to Austin’s chief of staff being sick with the flu: “I’m offering you the facts as we have them, in terms of an explanation of how this happened and also the fact that we will review our procedures and look at how we can do better in the future.”

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said during a press briefing on Tuesday that President Biden has full confidence in Austin, and that Mr. Biden learned of Austin’s prostate cancer diagnosis on Tuesday morning.

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In an impassioned speech on the Senate floor on Tuesday, New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez asserted his innocence and denied federal charges against him alleging that he took bribes from Qatar in exchange for a friend to get a lucrative contract. The Democratic senator said he was facing “persecution” by the Justice Department rather than prosecution, and defiantly declared he did nothing wrong.

Menendez, the former head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was hit with a three-charge bribery indictment in October for allegedly acting as a foreign agent for Egypt. Earlier this month, hit was hit with new charges alleging that he took bribes from the Qatari government to help a friend. Menendez said in his floor speech: “Why did the government not proceed with all of these accusations from the beginning? The answer is clear to me. By filing three indictments … it allows the government to keep the sensational story in the press. It poisons the jury pool and it seeks to convict me in the court of public opinion.”

Menendez accused prosecutors of wanting a judicial victory rather than legal justice, and questioned the foundation of the Justice Department’s case against him.  He decried that some already have judged the case “despite my innocence and before a single piece of evidence has even been introduced in a court of law.”

Menendez is up for re-election this year; if the case proceeds to trial, it will be the second time in his career Menendez will face off against federal prosecutors. Bad in 2017, a jury deadlocked on charges that he accepted gifts from Egypt as an unregistered foreign agent (those charges were dropped after the trial).

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