Ronny Jackson, Former White House Physician, Was Demoted by the Navy

Now a Republican member of the House and a Trump ally, his previously unpublicized demotion from rear admiral to captain came after a Pentagon investigation found misconduct on the job.

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Ronny Jackson in 2018. Mr. Jackson still refers to himself as a retired U.S. Navy rear admiral on his congressional website.

In a report completed three years ago, the Pentagon found that Rear Adm. Ronny L. Jackson had mistreated subordinates while serving as the White House physician and drank and took sleeping pills on the job. The report recommended that he face discipline.

Now it turns out that the Navy quietly punished him the next year. Though he had retired from the military in 2019, he was demoted to captain — a sanction that he has not publicly acknowledged.

Mr. Jackson, now a Republican congressman from Texas and an outspoken ally of former President Donald J. Trump, whose care he supervised in the White House, still refers to himself as a retired U.S. Navy rear admiral on his congressional website.

According to a former defense official and a current military official, Mr. Jackson was demoted from rear admiral to captain in the summer of 2022. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters. Mr. Jackson could not be reached for comment. His lawyer, Stanley Woodward, declined to comment.

In a statement on Thursday, a Navy official said only that the findings led the Navy to take administrative actions against him. The official would not say what those actions were.

The findings of the internal investigation into Mr. Jackson “are not in keeping with the standards the Navy requires of its leaders,” the Navy said in a statement on Thursday. “And, as such, the secretary of the Navy took administrative action in July 2022.”

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