During his relatively brief tenure as a political figure, Rep. Ronny Jackson has found himself at the center of multiple controversies. The Texas Republican was, for example, a White House physician who made bizarre public comments about Donald Trump’s health, which in turn made him the subject of ridicule.
Soon after in the president’s first term, Trump announced that he wanted Jackson to join his Cabinet as secretary of Veterans Affairs, despite an obvious lack of qualifications. That didn’t go too well, either: Amid reports about Jackson’s alleged pattern of substance abuse, harassing women and creating a “toxic” work environment (all of which Jackson denied), the nominee faced bipartisan opposition. The White House pulled his nomination soon after.
Two years later, Jackson was elected to Congress, but the revelations continued. In 2021, the Pentagon’s inspector general’s office concluded that Jackson had engaged in “inappropriate conduct” while serving as Trump’s doctor, adding that the Republican “drank alcohol, made sexual comments to subordinates, and took the sedative Ambien while working as White House physician.” The Defense Department’s internal watchdog also found that Jackson mistreated subordinates and “disparaged, belittled, bullied and humiliated them.” (Jackson again denied any wrongdoing.)
A year later, the Navy demoted Jackson from admiral to captain as a consequence of his misconduct.
It’s against this backdrop that The Associated Press reported:
Rep. Ronny Jackson announced that the Navy has restored his retired rank of rear admiral, overturning a 2022 demotion that followed a scathing investigation that found major issues with his behavior while he was the top White House physician. The Texas Republican on Wednesday posted a June 13 letter from Navy Secretary John Phelan saying he had reinstated Jackson to the retired rank of a one-star admiral following a ‘review of all applicable reports and references.’
A Navy spokesperson confirmed in a written statement to The Associated Press that the military branch did, in fact, reverse the punishment it had imposed three years earlier.
Is it possible that the Navy, for entirely benign reasons, decided to revisit Jackson’s case, to reassess the evidence and findings, and concluded that he’d been treated unfairly? Sure, I suppose that’s possible.








