An investigation released on Wednesday into U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin's secret 2024 hospitalization found his desire for privacy drove notification failures inside the government, and that he took medication that could have affected his cognitive functions while still in sole command.

The 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 Department of Defense Office of Inspector General found that Secretary Lloyd Austin's secret hospitalizations "unnecessarily" put America's national security at higher risk.

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

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.

A Pentagon watchdog found no harm to U.S. national security but said the incident raised the odds of such issues.