Ronny Jackson with Donald Trump during a Veterans Affairs Department “telehealth” event in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, DC on Thursday, Aug 03, 2017.Photo:Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty
Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty
Ronny Jackson during a hearing with the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic on Capitol Hill on July 11, 2023.Anna Moneymaker/Getty
Anna Moneymaker/Getty
In 2021, aDepartment of Defense investigationconcluded that Jackson mistreated colleagues during his time with the White House Medical Unit, including making “sexual and denigrating statements” about a female subordinate. The DoD also said hedrank alcohol and took Ambien while on dutyas the president’s physician.
The DoD recommended in its report that the Navy should take appropriate action against Jackson — who at that point had already retired from service and launched his congressional career — but news of next steps were not made public.
Now, thePostcites sources who say that Jackson, 56, was retroactively demoted to retired Navy captain after the report came out, and no longer receives the amount of pension afforded to retired rear admirals.
Katherine L. Kuzminski, a military policy expert at Center for a New American Security, told thePostthat Jackson should know better than to continue characterizing himself as a retired admiral. “While it is possible that others will mistakenly refer to him as ‘Admiral’ in perpetuity," she told the outlet, “he himself should not make that mistake.”
Retired Navy Captain Ronny Jackson, the former White House physician for Presidents Trump and Obama.Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty
In 2021, Jackson — who has become a fierce Trump ally in Congress — slammed the report that claimed his misconduct on the job, calling the allegations a “political hit job” and accusing the DoD report of reexamining “false allegations from my years with the Obama Administration because I have refused to turn my back on President Trump.”
PEOPLE has contacted Jackson’s congressional office for comment about the previously undisclosed title change.
source: people.com
