Ronny L. Jackson, President Trump’s embattled nominee to lead the Department of Veterans Affairs, withdrew from consideration Thursday amid mushrooming allegations of professional misconduct that raised questions about the White House vetting process.

“The allegations against me are completely false and fabricated,” Jackson, the White House physician, said in a defiant statement. “If they had any merit, I would not have been selected, promoted and entrusted to serve in such a sensitive and important role as physician to three presidents over the past 12 years.”

Jackson’s nomination had become imperiled even before Capitol Hill Democrats on Wednesday released new allegations of misconduct. The claims include that Jackson had wrecked a government vehicle after getting drunk at a Secret Service going-away party.

The allegations were contained in a two-page document described by the Democratic staff of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee as a summary of interviews with 23 of Jackson’s current and former colleagues. The document also described Jackson’s “pattern” of handing out medication with no patient history, writing himself prescriptions and contributing to a hostile work environment with “a constant fear of reprisal.”

[VA nominee faces new allegations of drinking, wrecking government vehicle]

Jackson, 50, has consistently denied wrongdoing. He told colleagues Wednesday night that he had grown frustrated with the nomination process, according to two White House officials with knowledge of his deliberations. He was a surprise nominee to succeed David Shulkin, an Obama-era holdover once lauded by Trump, who was fired March 28.

During a television interview just minutes after Jackson’s statement, Trump said he had another candidate to lead Veterans Affairs in mind but would not provide a name. He noted, however, that the possible nominee has more political experience than Jackson.

Jackson planned to retire from the Navy to take the VA job. Trump has put him up for a promotion from one-star to two-star admiral. That nomination remains pending with the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Jackson becomes the latest candidate Trump has put forward to run a major agency only to topple during the confirmation process. His prior nominees for labor secretary, Army secretary and Navy secretary all withdrew last year after questions arose during their vetting process.

Jackson’s nomination to lead the federal government’s second-largest agency was contentious from the start. White House officials, members of both political parties and veterans advocates all questioned the president’s decision, which was announced via Twitter on March 28.

Veteran advocates and many lawmakers expressed concerns about Jackson’s lack of management experience, and some have worried that he would capitulate to Trump’s goal of outsourcing more veteran services.

The move coincided with Trump’s removal of David Shulkin as VA secretary. The Cabinet’s only Obama-era holdover, Shulkin clashed with those in the administration who’ve sought an aggressive expansion of VA’s Choice program, which allows veterans to seek health care from private providers at taxpayer expense. Those opposed to that plan fear it will undermine efforts to address the many challenges VA faces.

[Here are 5 urgent problems a new VA secretary would need to tackle]

Jackson, a one-star Navy admiral whose tenure at the White House spans three administrations, has been criticized as too inexperienced to take on the monumental task of leading an organization comprising more than 360,000 employees. Apart from overseeing the White House medical staff, Jackson had 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 Trump’s health. The president is said to have been captivated by his doctor’s appearance in the White House briefing room, where, following Trump’s physical, Jackson extolled Trump’s fitness and cognitive acuity.

“In my role as a doctor, I have tirelessly worked to provide excellent care for all my patients,” Jackson said in his statement Thursday. “In doing so, I have always adhered to the highest ethical standards. Unfortunately, because of how Washington works, these false allegations have become a distraction for this President and the important issue we must be addressing — how we give the best care to our nation’s heroes.”

Late last week, aides to Tester 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 Tester but the committee’s chairman, Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.), who agreed to postpone Jackson’s confirmation hearing while lawmakers investigated the allegations.

The report released by committee Democrats suggested Jackson demonstrated a “pattern” of handing out medication with no patient history, writing prescriptions for himself and contributing to a hostile work environment where there was a “constant fear of reprisal.” The document also says he “wrecked a government vehicle” after getting drunk a Secret Service party.

Tester defended the release of the allegations in a statement Thursday that did not directly reference Trump’s criticism.

“I want to thank the servicemembers who bravely spoke out over the past week,” Tester said. “It is my Constitutional responsibility to make sure the veterans of this nation get a strong, thoroughly vetted leader who will fight for them.”

In another statement, Isakson thanked Jackson for “his service to the country.”

“I will work with the administration to see to it we get a VA secretary for our veterans and their families,” Isakson said.

Democrats said Thursday that the allegations against Jackson reflected a lack of proper vetting by the White House.

“To nominate Ronny Jackson without thoroughly vetting him and ensuring he’d be an experienced and qualified VA Secretary was an insult to our veterans,” Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) wrote on Twitter. “They deserve an administration that honors their service with a nominee capable of leading the VA.”

[Ronny Jackson, Trump’s pick for Veterans Affairs, may pass up $1 million to join the Cabinet]

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.

Since 2001, when the U.S. went to war in Afghanistan, VA has had seven secretaries. It’s acting head is Robert Wilkie, who was moved into the role from another appointed position at the Defense Department.

Trump made no mention of Jackson’s withdrawal later Thursday morning at a previously scheduled event with wounded military veterans. Trump touted reforms underway at the Veteran Affairs department and recognized Wilkie, whom the president said “is doing a great job over at the VA.”

The event in the East Room of the White House honored the Wounded Warrior Project Soldier Ride, a cycling program that accommodates wounded veterans of varying degrees in their journey.

Wilkie, who has been acting secretary for a month, is considered a possible candidate for the full-time job because he has been previously confirmed by the Senate for another role, is a veteran and has on-the-job training.

“With the failure of Ronny Jackson it’s going to be a whole different world with vetting,” said Darin Selnick, who recently left the White House after a stint as veterans liaison to VA. “They are going to have to rethink who and how they vet.”

Having previously cleared vetting, Wilkie would be a good candidate if he wants the job, Selnick said.

A group of Trump’s friends who have taken a keen interest in VA issues had assembled a group of candidates when Shulkin was ousted, most of whom were doctors, whose candidacies might be rethought in light of Jackson’s fate, according to people familiar with the process.

One name that circulated Thursday was Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), a military veteran. But she said she has not been approached by the Trump administration is not seeking the job. Republican leadership would also likely balk at opening another seat in a difficult election year.

Addressing reporters Thursday, House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) suggested two possible choices for the next VA secretary: Rep. Phil Roe (R-Tenn.), the current chairman of the House Veterans Committee; and former Rep. Jeff Miller (R-Fla.), a past chairman of the committee.

A leading veterans group said morning that it was happy to see the end of a “painful and tumultuous chapter” for Veterans Affairs.

“But the volatile, damaging saga continues,” said Paul Rieckhoff, founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. “We now face the prospect of a stunning eighth nominee for VA Secretary since 9/11. Our community is exhausted by the unnecessary and seemingly never-ending drama.”

Philip Rucker, Amy Gardner, Seung Min Kim and Emily Wax-Thibodeaux contributed to this report.

We’ve seen over and over that President Trump’s strategy of speaking off the cuff was more helpful to his election than it is to his various legal fights. While his supporters took his words seriously but not always literally, courts and attorneys tend to do both. That has meant, for example, that Trump’s tweets often end up being cited in court rulings as a means of demonstrating his attitudes to particular subjects or to establish matters of fact.

Sometimes, those comments become part of the legal process on a remarkably expedited timeline, such as how Trump’s comments during an interview on Fox News’s “Fox and Friends” made its way into a legal filing by the U.S. Attorney’s Office from the Southern District of New York in less than three hours.

Trump was discussing the criminal investigation into his attorney Michael Cohen with the show’s hosts.

“This doesn’t have to do with me,” Trump said. “Michael is a businessman. He’s got a business. He also practices law. I would say probably the big thing is his business and they’re looking at something having to do with his business. I can tell you he’s a good guy.” Downplaying Cohen’s role, Trump noted that he had “so many attorneys, you wouldn’t even believe it.”

“How much of your legal work was handled by Michael Cohen?” host Steve Doocy asked.

“Well, as a percentage of my overall legal work, a tiny, tiny little fraction,” Trump replied.

That claim didn’t help Cohen.

As we’ve reported, Cohen’s legal team has been fighting in federal court to try to control how his files are reviewed to protect the confidentiality he had with his legal clients. Because he is an attorney, the search of Cohen’s home and office earlier this month necessitated a special set of precautions by FBI investigators, including additional levels of sign-off and the use of a special team to ensure that any potentially attorney-client privileged material wasn’t viewed by the team trying to build a case against Cohen.

Once all that material was seized, there would usually be a “taint team” or “filter team,” walled off from the investigatory team, which reviewed the collected documents and electronic files to weed out any that would be considered privileged — excluding documents which met the “crime-fraud exception,” meaning ones between an attorney and his client which furthered or aimed at covering up criminal activity. Cohen’s legal team, though, noting the exception nature of his client base, argued that the federal investigators should not be allowed to do that review and, in their filing requesting a restraining order on that review, wrote that “thousands, if not millions” of documents might be privileged. Given that scale, they suggested, the government would be tripping over privileged documents regularly.

In court, though, Cohen’s team’s claim quickly broke down, with Cohen’s attorney Todd Harrison backing away from the claim that there were thousands of documents between Cohen and his clients (though there might be thousands of privileged documents if you included communication between Cohen and his own attorneys). The government — worried about getting past privilege review quickly in order to gain access to the rest of the documents and bolster its criminal case against Cohen — pointed out that the number of communications with Trump himself was likely limited given that a review of Cohen’s email showed no messages with the president. What’s more, Cohen had only two other clients: a Republican fundraiser named Elliott Broidy (for whom Cohen settled a payment to a woman with whom Broidy had an affair) and Fox News’s Sean Hannity.

You probably see where this is going. Trump’s assertion that Cohen did a “tiny, tiny little fraction” of his legal work reinforced the government’s argument that very few of the documents seized from Cohen involved the president, undermining Cohen’s team’s claim that it was necessary that they do the first review of the documents to weed out privileged communications.

And so, in a filing with the court issued Thursday morning, the U.S. Attorney’s team made that point in a footnote, also pointing out that Hannity had downplayed how much work Cohen had done for him.

While it’s not immediately obvious here, Trump’s claim also includes the defense offered by his own legal team during the court fight. His attorney had argued that only Trump was positioned to review Cohen’s documents to determine what was privileged. Trump’s dismissal of how much Cohen did for him suggests that there wasn’t much for Trump to review anyway. (Judge Kimba Wood had seemed skeptical that Trump would have a lot of time to review documents, given his current position.)