Navy demoted GOP Rep. Ronny Jackson after scathing 2022 report

By Oren Lieberman | 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.