According to bombshell new reporting from The Washington Post, Donald Trump’s former White House physician turned Texas Republican House Rep. Ronny Jackson has been demoted by the United States Navy as a result of an Inspector’s General report that found Jackson engaged in multiple facets of deeply inappropriate behavior while serving in the White House under then-President Donald J. Trump.
A brutal report from the Pentagon Inspector General determined that Jackson created a hostile work environment, used drugs, and regularly drank alcohol during his time in the Trump White House, serving as the then-president’s doctor. These findings ultimately resulted in Jackson, who is now a two-term US congressman, receiving a humiliating demotion from a retired admiral to captain — a move that carries serious financial implications for Jackson, as well as social stigma among military circles.
Lt. Cmdr. Joe Keiley, a Navy spokesperson, said of the matter, “The substantiated allegations in the DoDIG [Department of Defense Office of 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.”
Keiley declined to confirm Jackson’s current rank or his official demotion. However, the TX congressman continues to publicly refer to himself as a retired rear admiral, as does former President Trump and other notable Republican figures.
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Military policy expert at the Center for a New American Security, Katherine L. Kuzminski, said, “While it is possible that others will mistakenly refer to him as ‘Admiral’ in perpetuity, he himself should not make that mistake.”
A US Navy official confirmed that the service branch did take unspecified action against Ronny Jackson in connection to the 2021 Inspector’s General report that found the now-former Trump White House physician regularly berated subordinates, “made sexual and denigrating statements” toward at least one woman who served under him, drank alcohol with his subordinates while on duty, and regularly took the sleep drug Ambien.
Kuzminski explained that Jackson’s demotion from a retired one-star admiral, his ranking upon his December 2019 retirement, to a retired captain, comes with a pay cut to the tune of more than $15,000 and that pay gap will likely only increase over time with periodic rate increases.
You can read the full report from The Washington Post here.
Featured image via screen capture
