The White House has denied that it “raided” the office of Donald Trump’s longtime personal doctor to seize the president’s medical records.
Dr Harold Bornstein told NBC News that Trump’s then bodyguard Keith Schiller and two others turned up at his office in February 2017 in an episode that left him feeling “raped, frightened and sad”.
The incident took place two days after Bornstein, who had been Trump’s New York doctor for more than 35 years, revealed that he had prescribed Propecia, a drug to combat hair loss in men.
On Tuesday Sarah Sanders, the White House press secretary, defended the move. Asked about Bornstein’s characterisation of it as a “raid”, she replied: “No, that is not my understanding.”
Sanders added: “It would be standard procedure for a newly elected president’s records to be in possession by the White House medical unit. And that was what was taking place, is those records were being transferred over to the White House medical unit as requested.”
Bornstein, 70, told NBC News that he was not given a form authorising him to release Trump’s records and that Schiller, along with Trump Organisation lawyer Alan Garten, took the originals and copies of Trump’s charts and lab reports, including records filed under pseudonyms.
The doctor said he was speaking out now after seeing reports that Ronny Jackson, allegedly known as “the candy man” for loosely prescribing pain medications as White House doctor, will not return to his post as Trump’s personal physician after his nomination to run veterans affairs became mired in scandal and collapsed.
Sanders was asked to clarify Jackson’s current status. “He’s still an active duty navy doctor assigned to the White House,” she said. “But upon his nomination to the Department of Veterans Affairs as the secretary, an acting doctor was put in his place, and Dr [Sean] Conley will remain there.”
Sanders did not explain why, adding only: “Dr Conley had already assumed that role, but Dr Jackson continues to be an active duty navy doctor that’s assigned here at the White House where there are a number of doctors that are part of the White House Medical Unit.”
The quirky, wild-haired Bornstein and the stiff-backed Jackson appear to have little in common but one thing unites them. In 2015 Bornstein described Trump’s health as “astonishingly excellent” and said he would be “the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency”.
Earlier this year Jackson told reporters that Trump has “incredible genes” and, had he eaten a healthier diet over the last 20 years, “might live to be 200 years old”.