'False and fabricated': Trump's controversial nominee to head veterans department withdraws
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Apart from overseeing the White House medical staff, Jackson led a military trauma unit in Iraq, tending to troops who had suffered catastrophic wounds during one of the war’s most violent stretches. He rose to prominence in January, after delivering a fawning assessment of Mr Trump’s health.
Late last week, aides to Senator Jon Tester, the committee’s ranking Democrat, received damaging information about Jackson’s management of the White House medical office. They began interviewing his colleagues, many of them active-duty military officers, whose assessment of the admiral alarmed not only Senator Tester, but the committee’s chairman, Republican Senator Johnny Isakson, who agreed to postpone Jackson’s confirmation hearing while lawmakers investigated the allegations.
The White House, which was criticized for failing to adequately vet Jackson’s nomination, defended him until the end, saying that his record as a physician serving three presidents was unassailable, and demanding that he be allowed to defend himself during a confirmation hearing. But by Wednesday night, senators in both political parties doubted he could survive politically.
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