Republican Rep. Ronny Jackson was demoted by Navy following watchdog probe into work as White House doc: report

He’s been doctoring his rank.

Former White House physician and Republican Congressman Ronny Jackson still touts himself as a retired US Navy rear admiral — even though he was formally demoted nearly two years ago following a damning inspector general report.

The Navy bumped Jackson down to retired captain in July 2022 following a Pentagon inspector general’s probe that supported allegations that he behaved inappropriately during his time as physician to the president between 2013 and 2018, a current defense official and a former US official told the Washington Post.

When Jackson retired in December 2019, he was classified as a rear admiral (lower half), a one-star rank.

But Jackson — who was elected to represent Texas’ 13th District in 2020 — still flexes his outdated bona fides whenever possible, including on his congressional website, where he refers to himself as “a retired US Navy Rear Admiral with nearly three decades of military service.”

A Navy official confirmed to The Post that the service took unspecified action against Jackson after the 2021 inspector general report revealed that the dad of three “made sexual and denigrating statements” about females on staff and berated subordinates during his White House tenure.

“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,” a Navy spokesperson said.

Jackson’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

The demotion also comes with a serious financial cost.

For an officer with 24 years of service, there is a more than $15,000 difference between the annual pension payouts for a retired one-star admiral and a retired captain, Katherine L. Kuzminski, a military policy expert at the Center for a New American Security, told the Washington Post.

It is also inappropriate for Jackson to keep referring to himself by his former rank, she added.

“While it is possible that others will mistakenly refer to him as ‘Admiral’ in perpetuity, he himself should not make that mistake,” Kuzminski cautioned.

A Navy official confirmed to the Washington Post that the service took unspecified action against Jackson after the 2021 inspector general report revealed that the dad of three “made sexual and denigrating statements” about females on staff and berated subordinates during his White House tenure.

“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,” Lt. Cmdr. Joe Keiley told the outlet via email.

The IG report also supported allegations that Jackson drank alcohol inappropriately and used Ambien while on call as the president’s doctor — and recommended that the Navy secretary take action against him.

The 37-page write-up was also not Jackson’s first brush with controversy: A 2012 watchdog report had previously found that he and a rival physician engaged in “unprofessional behaviors” during a power struggle over the White House medical office.

Jackson, 56, became a physician in the White House Medical Unit in 2006 after more than a decade of naval service. He was promoted to White House Medical Unit director in 2010, taking on the additional title of physician to the president three years later.

In his 2022 memoir “Holding The Line,” Jackson dismissed the inspector general report as a political witch hunt.

“If I had retired and not gotten into politics, this investigation would have never gone anywhere,” he wrote.

“This was happening because I am a perceived threat [to] the Biden administration and because a few political appointees in the Department of Defense want to make a name for themselves,” he scoffed.

During his time at the White House, Jackson enjoyed the unique position of being a favorite of both Barack Obama and Donald Trump.

Obama promoted him to a one-star admiral in 2016, the Washington Post said, while Trump became a fan after Jackson told reporters in 2018 that the then-president “could live to be 200 years old” had he eaten healthier over the previous two decades.

That March, Trump nominated Jackson to be secretary of veterans affairs, but Jackson withdrew the nomination the following month over allegations of inappropriate behavior, which formed the basis of the 2021 report.

Jackson is seeking a third House term in November and is running unopposed in his deep-red district.