Navy demoted Ronny Jackson in 2022 after scathing watchdog report
By Oren Liebermann, CNN
(CNN) — The Navy demoted Rep. Ronny Jackson in 2022 after a scathing report from the Defense Department watchdog found the former White House physician drank on the job, routinely screamed at subordinates and acted inappropriately.
Jackson, who retired in 2019 as a one-star rear admiral, was demoted to the rank of captain, according to two US officials.
Jackson, who served as the top White House physician under President Barack Obama and President Donald Trump, still refers to himself as a retired rear admiral, the rank at which he retired on December 1, 2019. Now a Republican member of Congress, Jackson says on his website that he is a “retired U.S. Navy Rear Admiral with nearly three decades of military service.”
CNN has reached out to Jackson for comment.
“The substantiated allegations in the DoDIG investigation of Rear Adm (lower half) Ronny Jackson are not in keeping with the standards the Navy requires of its leaders and, as such, the Secretary of the Navy took administrative action in July 2022,” said Commander Jacqueline Pau, a Navy spokeswoman.
The Washington Post was first to report the news.
When the Pentagon Inspector General report was first released March 2021, Jackson said it was a politically motivated attack that “resurrected” old allegations against him. He rejected any claims that he drank on the job.
Jackson currently serves as a member of the House of Representatives from Texas, where he sits on the House Armed Services Committee. He has been an ardent Trump supporter.
Then-President Trump nominated Jackson to run the Department of Veterans Affairs, after taking a personal liking to his doctor, who declared Trump in “excellent health” after his 2018 physical exam, despite evidence of heart disease and borderline obesity.
It was after his nomination to lead the VA that allegations of misconduct first emerged, eventually leading to Jackson’s withdrawal from consideration. But he remained in Trump’s White House as a medical adviser before eventually running for a US congressional seat in Texas.
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