President Donald Trump’s pick to head the Department of Veterans Affairs, Ronny Jackson, had a meeting with a key Republican senator Wednesday evening in an effort to save his sinking nomination.
Jackson met with Republican Senator Thom Tillis, who is a member of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, which has jurisdiction over his nomination. According to Politico, the meeting happened only hours after Democrats released a controversial document detailing allegations against Jackson including drunkenness on work to improper handling of prescription drugs.
Tillis, who is known as one of the President’s stronger allies in the Senate GOP conference, met with Jackson after regular business hours in one of the Capitol’s upstairs hideaways to sort through the allegations.
“He’s giving me more information so I can get down to the facts,” Tillis said after the end of the meeting. “The problem that we have is we’ve got allegations. We’ve got to pin every one of them down and that’s the purpose of the meeting.”
Jackson, who was surrounded by reporters and television cameramen as he made his way to a vehicle waiting outside the Capitol, did not respond to the questions about whether he thought the allegations were unfair.
Senate Democrats published a list of 20 specific allegations that have been leveled against Jackson by his current and former colleagues. He currently serves as chief physician to President Trump and held the same position to President Barack Obama.
These sources state that Jackson received the nickname of “Candyman” from White House staff because he was freely giving prescription drugs without the proper paperwork. They claim he wrote out prescriptions for himself and would prescribe drugs when other doctors wouldn’t.
The document also states that Jackson once gave such a large supply of Percocet, which is an addictive painkiller, to a White House Military Office staffer that it caused a panic within the White House Medical Unit over missing pills. The memo also claims that he had a private stock of controlled substances.
The anonymous sources who are communicating with the Veterans’ Affairs panel also say that Jackson was part of “multiple incidents of drunkenness on duty” as well as getting drunk at a Secret Service going away party where he wrecked a government vehicle.
Be the first to comment