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Rep. Ronny Jackson, R-Texas, was quietly demoted by the Navy after a Defense Department inspector general report found he’d engaged in “inappropriate conduct” while serving as the top White House physician for Presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump, records obtained by NBC News show.
Jackson, who was a rear admiral when he retired from the Navy in 2019, is now listed as a captain, his service record shows.
A spokesperson for the Navy declined to comment on Jackson’s rank, but said in a statement to NBC News that 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.”
The spokesperson would not elaborate on what the administrative action was. A current defense official and a former U.S. official who spoke on the condition of anonymity told the Washington Post, which first reported the demotion, that it was the reduction in rank.
A spokesperson for Jackson did not immediately respond to NBC News’ request for comment. In a page on his congressional website, Jackson still refers to himself as “a retired U.S. Navy Rear Admiral with nearly three decades of military service.”
Completed in 2021, the inspector general’s review found Jackson drank alcohol, made sexual comments to subordinates and took the sedative Ambien while working as White House physician. It also found he mistreated subordinates and “disparaged, belittled, bullied and humiliated them.”
Jackson pushed back against the findings, telling reporters Democrats were “using this report to repeat and rehash untrue attacks on my integrity” because “I have refused to turn my back on President Trump.”
Jackson was first assigned to the White House medical unit in 2006 and ascended to the top post there in the Obama administration. He also hit it off with Trump, whom he effusively praised after giving him his physical in 2018.
“He has incredibly good genes, and it’s just the way God made him,” Jackson said then, adding he thought Trump could live to be 200 years old if he ate better.
That year, Trump nominated Jackson to head the Department of Veterans Affairs, which is when the allegations of improper conduct first became public. Jackson later withdrew his name from consideration, while insisting he’d done nothing wrong.
“Unfortunately, because of how Washington works, these false allegations have become a distraction for this president and the important issue we must be addressing — how we give the best care to our nation’s heroes,” he said then.
He remained a steadfast Trump ally and was elected to the House of Representatives in 2020.
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