Sen. Tuberville blocks promotion of Lloyd Austin’s top military aide

Sen. Tommy Tuberville has blocked the promotion of an Army general who is a senior aide to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, people familiar with the matter said, threatening a confrontation between the Republican firebrand and the Pentagon just weeks before the presidential election while reviving a months-old furor over the military chief’s medical secrecy.

Tuberville (Ala.) has frozen the nomination of Lt. Gen. Ronald P. Clark to become the four-star commander of all U.S. Army forces in the Pacific, according to the senator’s spokeswoman, Mallory Jaspers, and two other officials familiar with the emerging standoff. The maneuver, which has not been previously reported, restricts Clark’s nomination from coming up for a vote in the Senate and could mark the beginning of the end of his 36-year military career.

Clark, 58, was serving in his role as Austin’s senior military assistant when the defense secretary underwent surgery on Dec. 22 to treat prostate cancer and a week later was admitted to intensive care in crisis, having developed severe complications from the procedure. Austin, who turned 71 in August, spent about two weeks in the hospital and eventually was diagnosed with infections in his urinary tract and bladder.

The incident caused an uproar in Washington after it emerged that Clark and other senior members of Austin’s staff did not know about his cancer diagnosis and surgery until he was in intensive care on Jan. 2, and then withheld that information from President Joe Biden and senior White House officials for two more days once they were made aware.

Eventually, the Pentagon disclosed Austin’s hospitalization to Congress and the American public on Jan. 5, three days after his top aides learned about it. The secrecy angered lawmakers from both political parties, who said the defense secretary’s decision showed a stunning lack of judgment.

Jaspers, in a statement, linked the hold on Clark’s promotion directly to the political imbroglio over Austin’s health crisis.

“Sen. Tuberville has concerns about Lt. Gen. Clark’s actions during Secretary Austin’s hospitalization,” Jaspers told The Washington Post in a statement. “Lt. Gen. Clark knew that Sec. Austin was incapacitated and did not tell the Commander in Chief. As a senior commissioned officer, Lt. Gen. Clark’s oath requires him to notify POTUS when the chain of command is compromised.” POTUS is shorthand for president of the United States.

Jaspers added that Tuberville is awaiting the results of a forthcoming Defense Department inspector general review of the incident, potentially leaving an off-ramp in the dispute.

Another Senate aide familiar with the issue said that if Tuberville had not placed a hold on Clark’s nomination, another Republican may have done so. Some Democrats also have concerns about how Austin’s hospitalization was handled, the aide added, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the issue remains sensitive.

A Pentagon spokesman, James Adams, said in a statement that Clark has served in several positions of leadership in recent military conflicts and previously led troops in the Pacific. The job for which he has been nominated would place him at the forefront of the Pentagon’s efforts to contain China and defend Taiwan.

“Lt. Gen. Clark is highly qualified and was nominated for this critical position because of his experience and strategic expertise,” the statement said. “We urge the Senate to confirm all of our qualified nominees. These holds undermine our military readiness.”

The situation has echoes of an extended hold that Tuberville placed on hundreds of military promotions last year, in a dispute over the Pentagon’s travel-reimbursement policy for personnel who seek an abortion outside the state where they are stationed. Tuberville’s showdown with the Defense Department then gummed up the military personnel system for months. Eventually, his Republican colleagues decried the gambit as damaging and he backed down.

In the case of Austin’s hospitalization, Pentagon officials have said that at no point was command and control of the U.S. military in doubt. Yet they have struggled to explain why they waited days to notify the White House. Austin’s chief of staff at the time, Kelly Magsamen, was sick with the flu, defense officials said, but other senior aides — including the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. — also knew about Austin’s condition and did not communicate it.

Magsamen resigned from her role in June. A Pentagon spokeswoman, Sabrina Singh, told reporters then that Magsamen has “earned some well-deserved time off,” and that her departure had nothing to do with forthcoming findings by the inspector general.

Austin apologized to the nation during a news conference on Feb. 1, saying the cancer diagnosis was a “gut punch” that he did not handle well.

“I want to be crystal clear: We did not handle this right. I did not handle this right,” Austin told reporters then. “I should have told the president about my cancer diagnosis. I should have also told my team and the American public, and I take full responsibility.”

The matter has been under review by Robert Storch, the Defense Department inspector general, since January, with the independent watchdog promising then “to examine the roles, processes, procedures, and actions” surrounding Austin’s surgery and subsequent hospitalization. Mollie Halpern, a spokeswoman for Storch, said in an email Monday that she was unable to disclose when the review may be completed. The inspector general’s office, she said, does not provide timelines about ongoing work “to protect the integrity of the investigative process.”

Another Pentagon review commissioned by Magsamen found in February that there was “no attempt to obfuscate” Austin’s cancer diagnosis, and that Austin’s aides felt constrained by medical privacy laws. That review, conducted by career civil servants, was dismissed by Republicans as an incomplete examination of the facts by Austin’s subordinates.