Raid made Trump’s former doctor ‘sad’
Harold Bornstein is the latest longtime Trump figure to publicly split from the U.S. president. MD reveals president ‘dictated’ glowing review of his own health
WASHINGTON— They came knocking because of loose talk about the president’s hair. On Feb. 3, 2017, U.S. President Donald Trump’s longtime bodyguard, a Trump Organization lawyer and a third man allegedly pushed into the Park Ave. offices of Harold Bornstein, according to an account Trump’s former physician gave NBC News on Tuesday.
Just days before the visit, Bornstein, a gastroenterologist with shoulder-length locks and funky eyewear, had spilled to the New York Times about his most famous patient. Bornstein slipped that Trump took Propecia, a medication that stimulates hair growth. Bornstein confided to the paper he, too, took the drug. “He has all his hair,” the doctor told the Times. “I have all my hair.”
Two days later, the men from Trump — including security head Keith Schiller and attorney Alan Garten — arrived to reclaim all the files Bornstein had on the president. According to the doctor, they spent 25 to 30 minutes hoovering up the original copies of Trump’s medical records.
“I feel raped — that’s how I feel,” the doctor dramatically said. “Raped, frightened, and sad. 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 is not a breach of medical trust to tell somebody they take Propecia to grow their hair. What’s the matter with that?”
Trump’s New York inner circle often seems stocked with blaring characters tuned to the president’s own unique frequencies. There was Sam Nunberg, a fast-gabbing political operative. Omarosa Manigault Newman, a merciless reality television contestant. Michael Cohen, the tough-guy lawyer. Unbending loyalty knit them all to the man whose name was plastered on the building.
But as Trump’s tenure in the White House continues, each of those old guard loyalists has slipped away. Nunberg repudiated the president in a bizarre blitz of cable news appearances. Manigault used a stint on Celeb
rity Big Brother to knock the administration. And Cohen, Trump’s attack-dog defender, is now the subject of a criminal investigation.
Bornstein, who served as Trump’s physician for more than three decades, is the latest Trump figure to publicly split from the president. And the repudiation did not stop with the doctor’s revelation about the February 2017 visit. On Tuesday, Bornstein told CNN he did not write the 2015 glowing review of the president’s health, a typo-pocked assessment that brought the doctor scrutiny. “He dictated that whole letter,” Bornstein told CNN. “I didn’t write that letter.”
Bornstein did not respond to a request for comment. On Tuesday, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders described the visit to retrieve the records as “standard operating procedure for a new president.”
Throughout his career, Bornstein has been hit with three malpractice lawsuits, according to the Daily Beast. Two of the cases involved allegations of overmedicating that led to a patient’s death, the website reported.
Each complaint was settled before a trial, and Bornstein admitted no liability.
Bornstein first came to national attention after Trump’s campaign released the December 2015 letter signed by the doctor attesting to the candidate’s health. The breathless praise immediately raised eyebrows.
The letter said Trump’s laboratory results were “astonishingly excellent.” The candi- date’s “physical strength and stamina are extraordinary.” It concluded: “If elected, Mr. Trump, I can state unequivocally, will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency.”
The note drew scrutiny, and Bornstein eventually admitted he dashed off the letter in five minutes. “I was just rushed for time,” the doctor said in 2016.
This week, Bornstein offered a drastically different account of how the health report was compiled. According to the CNN report, Bornstein said the letter was put together while he was on the phone with Trump.
“(Trump) dictated the letter and I would tell him what he couldn’t put in there,” Bornstein told the network. “That’s black humour, that letter … It’s like the movie Fargo. It takes the truth and moves it in a different direction.”