Paul Jenks

Lawmakers are demanding answers from the Pentagon after Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III did not swiftly publicly disclose that he was hospitalized due to complications from a recent medical procedure. News of Austin’s hospitalization wasn’t widely known until days into his stay at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., with details withheld from the media, Congress, Defense Department leadership and President Joe Biden himself.

Two Democrats who serve on panels that oversee the Pentagon have stepped up their campaign to curb what they call widespread “price gouging” in contracts for military spare parts. Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Rep. John Garamendi of California, both of them members of their chamber’s Armed Services Committee, pressed their case Wednesday in a pair of letters obtained by CQ Roll Call.

Republicans yanked another fiscal 2024 spending bill before a final vote that was scheduled for Thursday morning, leaving them empty-handed for the week and stuck at seven out of 12 annual appropriations bills passed.