WASHINGTON — The doctor who claimed during campaign season that President Trump “unequivocally will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency” says he felt “raped” after Trump’s bodyguard and another “large man” came to his office in February 2017 and seized all of Trump’s medical records.
Dr. Harold N. Bornstein, a gastroenterologist from Lenox Hill Hospital in New York, also called Trump’s vital signs “astonishingly excellent” and said his “physical strength and stamina are extraordinary.”
Bornstein now tells CNN of the glowing 2015 bill of health, “He dictated that whole letter. I didn’t write that letter.”
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters today, “As is standard operating procedure for a new president, the White House Medical Unit took possession of the president’s medical records.”
While Bornstein characterized the seizure led by Keith Schiller, who was director of Oval Office operations at the time, as a “raid,” Sanders said “that is not my understanding.”
Bornstein told NBC that the medical records seizure took place two days after he told The New York Times that he had prescribed Trump drugs for rosacea and cholesterol as well as Propecia, which can treat enlarged prostates and thinning hair.
Trump’s longtime doctor said he got a call from the White House after the story ran, saying he was out the running for the role of White House physician. That was followed by the visit from Schiller, Trump Organization Chief Legal Officer Alan Garten and a third man.
“They must have been here for 25 or 30 minutes. It created a lot of chaos,” Bornstein said, adding that the men made him taken down a framed photo of the doctor and Trump in the medical office waiting room.
Bornstein said the men did not provide a signed release of patient records from the president as required under HIPPA. He said the men seized sole copies of lab reports and medical charts under Trump’s name as well as those kept under a pseudonym.
“I couldn’t believe anybody was making a big deal out of a drug to grow his hair that seemed to be so important. And it certainly was not a breach of medical trust to tell somebody they take Propecia to grow their hair. What’s the matter with that?” Bornstein said.
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