President Donald Trump's longtime personal doctor, Dr. Harold Bornstein, told NBC News on Tuesday that he was "frightened and sad" when a trio of Trump associates showed up at his office in February 2017 and seized all of the president's medical records.
Bornstein described the incident as a “raid,” but White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders claimed at a news briefing Tuesday afternoon that the records seizure was part of regular procedures.
"As is standard operating procedure for a new president, the White House medical unit took possession of the president's medical records," Hucakbee Sanders said.
Bornstein told NBC News that Trump's long time personal attorney, Keith Schiller, Trump Organization Chief Legal Officer Alan Garten and an unidentified third man showed up at his office in New York unannounced on Feb. 3, 2017. A few days earlier, The New York Times published an interview with Bornstein in which the doctor said Trump took Propecia, a drug often prescribed to stimulate hair growth.
"They must have been here for 25 or 30 minutes," Bornstein told NBC News. "It created a lot of chaos."
Bornstein said the men seized the original copies of Trump’s charts -- including lab reports that were done under pseudonyms -- without providing him with paperwork authorizing the release of the records.
An unidentified source told NBC News that "there was a letter to Bornstein from then-White House doctor Ronny Jackson," but it wasn't clear whether a release form was attached to the letter.
Bornstein, who served as Trump's doctor for 35 years and wrote a letter during his campaign for the White House claiming he would be the "healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency," told NBC News that Trump cut ties with him after he told the Times about the president's medications.
"I couldn't believe anybody was making a big deal out of a drug to grow his hair that seemed to be so important,” he told the news network. “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?"
He told NBC News he decided to speak about the incident after seeing reports that Jackson would not return to his post as White House physician amid allegations that he overprescribed medication. The accusation and others surfaced after Trump nominated Jackson to head the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Jackson withdrew his name from consideration last week.
About the Author
