{"id":953,"date":"2018-05-01T21:48:55","date_gmt":"2018-05-02T01:48:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gopplaybook.com\/?p=953"},"modified":"2018-05-01T21:48:55","modified_gmt":"2018-05-02T01:48:55","slug":"trumps-onetime-physician-says-trump-aides-raided-his-office-describing-a-year-of-torture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gopplaybook.com\/?p=953","title":{"rendered":"Trump\u2019s Onetime Physician Says Trump Aides Raided His Office, Describing a Year of \u2018Torture\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By\u00a0Katie Rogers<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Lawrence K. Altman, M.D.\u00a0\u00a0
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Dr. Harold Bornstein, a longtime personal physician to President Trump, said he was cut out of Mr. Trump\u2019s orbit early last year after telling the news media that Mr. Trump took a drug to promote hair growth.<\/span>Credit<\/span>Joe Marino\/New York Daily News, via Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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WASHINGTON \u2014 President Trump\u2019s longtime physician said\u00a0<\/span>in an interview published Tuesday<\/a>\u00a0that after\u00a0<\/span>telling The New York Times<\/a>\u00a0that Mr. Trump took a drug to promote hair growth, two Trump aides had staged what he called \u201ca raid\u201d of his Manhattan office last February and removed all of Mr. Trump\u2019s medical files.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n

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Dr. Harold N. Bornstein, who served as Mr. Trump\u2019s personal doctor for 36 years,\u00a0told NBC News<\/a>\u00a0that the roughly half-hour encounter left him feeling \u201craped, frightened and sad.\u201d He said that since the president\u2019s bodyguard, Keith Schiller, accompanied by a lawyer for the Trump Organization, Alan Garten, and a third man he did not recognize took the files, he has had no contact with Mr. Trump and been effectively removed from his orbit.<\/p>\n

In a brief phone call with The Times on Tuesday, Dr. Bornstein did not elaborate on what he told NBC except to say that his earlier interviews with a reporter for the newspaper had caused him \u201ctorture for more than a year.\u201d He demanded an apology and a large donation in his name to Tufts University,\u00a0where he completed medical school<\/a>. The Times declined both requests.<\/p>\n

Dr. Bornstein had privately told several associates that he had been the target of a raid during which handwritten records and printed laboratory results were seized, but he had declined to publicly answer questions about the episode until this week.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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He told NBC that he decided to speak out after seeing reports that Dr. Ronny L. Jackson, the president\u2019s nominee to run the Department of Veterans Affairs, had been\u00a0accused of doling out medications and behaving inappropriately<\/a>\u00a0while serving as the White House physician. Dr. Jackson withdrew from consideration for the post shortly after.<\/p>\n

Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, said Tuesday that Dr. Jackson would return to the White House medical unit but not as Mr. Trump\u2019s physician. She said Dr. Sean Conley, a Navy commander who has been the acting White House physician since Dr. Jackson\u2019s nomination to the cabinet, would replace him.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis is like a celebration for me,\u201d Dr. Bornstein said.<\/p>\n

Ms. Sanders dismissed Dr. Bornstein\u2019s description of the visit by the three men as a raid. In a briefing with reporters, she said that the files had been removed by the White House medical unit as part of a standard transition procedure.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe White House medical unit took possession of the president\u2019s medical records,\u201d Ms. Sanders said. Asked whether the visit was a raid carried out by Mr. Schiller, she replied, \u201cThat is not my understanding.\u201d She did not address why Mr. Schiller, who was not a part of the unit, had been present.<\/p>\n

Dr. Bornstein said that he was not given a standard release form conforming to Hipaa regulations to sign over Mr. Trump\u2019s records before they were taken. But Ms. Sanders said that the White House medical unit supplied Dr. Bornstein with a letter requesting the records.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The Trump Organization, which at the time employed both Mr. Schiller and Mr. Garten, declined to comment.<\/p>\n

In his initial interviews with The New York Times in 2017, Dr. Bornstein made no secret of the fact that he had wanted to be the White House physician.<\/p>\n

During the presidential campaign, he wrote two letters vouching for Mr. Trump\u2019s health. In December 2015, he said that Mr. Trump would be \u201cthe healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency,\u201d and in September 2016, he said that Mr. Trump was \u201cin excellent physical health.\u201d (As his frustrations appeared to mount on Tuesday, Dr. Bornstein told CNN that Mr. Trump\u00a0had dictated<\/a>\u00a0the contents of the first letter.)<\/p>\n

Dr. Bornstein quickly fell out of favor with Mr. Trump after the Times article, in which he gave a public accounting of Mr. Trump\u2019s health and complained about the poor seats he was assigned at the president\u2019s inauguration.<\/p>\n

In the Times interviews \u2014 for which he also asked for a donation in his name to Tufts, a request The Times also declined \u2014 Dr. Bornstein\u00a0discussed Mr. Trump\u2019s medical history<\/a>, and bragged about having \u201cevery phone number for him and all the wives,\u201d whom he also treated. He said Mr. Trump, rumored to be a germaphobe, \u201cchanges the paper on the table himself\u201d after examinations.<\/p>\n

He also described the medications Mr. Trump was taking: antibiotics to control rosacea, a statin for elevated blood cholesterol and lipids, and finasteride, a prostate-related drug to promote hair growth.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe has all his hair,\u201d said Dr. Bornstein, who also took the drug. He also slipped in a boast about his own shoulder-length coif: \u201cI have all my hair.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Among other claims he made to NBC about the confrontation in his office, Dr. Bornstein said Mr. Schiller and Mr. Garten instructed him to remove a photo of Mr. Trump from the wall. As his lopsided news media tour continued, Dr. Bornstein\u00a0also fielded a brief call<\/a>\u00a0from CBS.<\/p>\n

\u201cSweetheart, this is Watergate. Goodbye!\u201d the doctor said to a producer for the network before hanging up.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Nate Schweber contributed reporting from New York, and Julie Hirschfeld\u00a0<\/em>Davis from Washington.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Katie Rogers\u00a0and\u00a0Lawrence K. Altman, M.D.\u00a0\u00a0May 1, 2018 Dr. Harold Bornstein, a longtime personal physician to President Trump, said he was cut out of Mr. Trump\u2019s…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":954,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-953","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-presidential-politics"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.gopplaybook.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/2018-05-01_21-47-40.jpg?fit=715%2C465&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8VBh7-fn","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gopplaybook.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/953","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gopplaybook.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gopplaybook.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gopplaybook.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gopplaybook.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=953"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.gopplaybook.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/953\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":955,"href":"https:\/\/www.gopplaybook.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/953\/revisions\/955"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gopplaybook.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gopplaybook.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gopplaybook.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gopplaybook.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}