White House defends taking records from Trump’s former doctor

WASHINGTON >> President Donald Trump’s former bodyguard did nothing out of the ordinary when he took possession of the president’s medical records, the White House said today, despite the claim by Trump’s former doctor that the episode felt like a “raid.”

Harold Bornstein, Trump’s longtime personal doctor, told NBC News that Keith Schiller, the president’s longtime bodyguard and former director of Oval Office operations, showed up at his office in February 2017 along with two other men to collect the records, leaving Bornstein feeling “raped, frightened and sad.”

But White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders disputed the doctor’s characterization of the episode.

“As is standard operating procedure for a new president, the White House Medical Unit took possession of the president’s medical records,” she told reporters at a White House briefing.

As for Bornstein’s description that it had had the feel of a raid, she said, “No, that is not my understanding.”

Bornstein told NBC that the incident took place two days after he’d divulged that he had prescribed Trump Propecia, a drug to combat hair loss in men.

Bornstein said he wasn’t given a form authorizing him to release Trump’s records, but said Schiller, along with Trump Organization lawyer Alan Garten, had taken the originals and copies of Trump’s charts and lab reports, including records filed under pseudonyms the office used.

Bornstein, an eccentric physician who served as Trump’s doctor for years, issued a statement during the 2016 campaign in which he described Trump’s test results as “astonishingly excellent” and declared that, “if elected,” Trump would be “the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency.”