Proud Navy veteran and former White House doctor Representative Ronny Jackson appears to have smudged some of the details of his military record.
On his congressional website, the Texas Republican describes himself as a “retired U.S. Navy Rear Admiral with nearly three decades of military service.” But that leaves out one big omission—that Jackson was demoted from the senior naval flag rank to captain in July 2022.
That move came after the Pentagon inspector general released a scathing report on Jackson’s behavior while serving in Donald Trump’s White House, including that the doctor—who had retired from the Navy in 2019—berated, drank with, and sexually harassed subordinates while serving as the director of the White House medical unit. Jackson was also accused of popping Ambien throughout the workday.
Those revelations came with a $15,000 cut in annual pension payouts for a 24-year veteran like Jackson, as well as social stigma within the ranks.
“The substantiated allegations in the [Department of Defense inspector general] 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,” Lt. Cmdr. Joe Keiley, a Navy spokesman, told The Washington Post.
Jackson casually dismissed the report in his July 2022 memoir, Holding the Line, conveniently skipping over the part where he was formally demoted.
“If I had retired and not gotten into politics, this investigation would have never gone anywhere,” Jackson wrote. “This was happening because I am a perceived threat to the Biden administration and because a few political appointees in the Department of Defense want to make a name for themselves.”
Jackson has played a key role in Trump’s 2024 campaign, helping the presumptive GOP presidential nominee shrug off concerns over his age by affirming that Trump is of sound mind and body, despite his increasingly routine mental glitches.
