The Potential Implications Of Pence's Warning To White House About Ronny Jackson

Mike Pence has been nearly invisible for much of the Trump presidency. And now that there is no real Republican legislative agenda for the remainder of the year, his rare appearances marching down to Capitol Hill to twist arms and preparing to cast the deciding vote in the Senate if needed have dwindled down to nothing.

Pence has spent most of his time raising money and laying the groundwork for his own Presidential ambitions while vocally supporting the President in almost every, often ill-fated, endeavor. So it was interesting to see this little tidbit in the news yesterday, namely that Pence’s staff warned the White House about Veterans Affairs nominee Ronny Jackson about Jackson’s volatile behavior and his possible breach of medical privacy rules.

This all came about when Jackson intervened with Pence’s physician over treatment that Pence’s wife, Karen, was getting. Pence’s doctor believed that Jackson’s intervention was thoroughly inappropriate and an abuse of his position as the President’s doctor. He also believed that Jackson violated Karen Pence’s medical privacy by briefing and discussing her situation with White House staff. When Pence’s doctor confronted Jackson on these issues, he felt that Jackson was again aggressive, abusive, and unprofessional.

Karen Pence was so disturbed by the situation that she instructed her doctor to instruct Pence’s top aide to warn Chief of Staff John Kelly about Jackson, which her doctor dutifully did. There is no doubt that Pence himself would have signed off on his aide speaking to Kelly about this issue.

Now, all this happened last September so there is no way Pence probably had any idea that Trump would nominate Jackson for the VA. And Trump obviously did so over the objections of many on the White House staff. The bigger question is where the leak of the Pence warning came from. Is it part of the attack on Kelly from his opponents inside the West Wing including Javanka, an attempt to blame Kelly for not protecting Trump from nominating Jackson? Or did the leak come from the Pence camp?

Either way, this is the first time that Pence and Trump have ended up on opposite sides of an issue. And if Pence was the one who leaked this item, then it would be the first sign that he is creating an ever-so-slight distance between himself and the President. The motivation for that creates some fascinating possibilities.