Something doesn’t add up about Donald Trump’s raid of Dr. Harold Bornstein
Donald J. Trump’s former personal New York doctor, Dr. Harold Bornstein, has described his experience of his office being raided by Keith Schiller and Alan Garten as feeling as if he was “raped.” The purported reason that Schiller and Garten raided his offices and took all of President Trump’s files was that Dr. Bornstein had disclosed in an interview that he had prescribed a hair growth medicine for the president for years. Something does not smell right about this.
Though Dr. Bornstein might have violated his obligations of patient confidentiality (he disputes that he violated anything by that disclosure), the raid of Dr. Bornstein’s office does not appear to be without issues. According to what he told NBC News, Dr. Bornstein received no HIPAA release from Schiller or Garten when they came to his office in February 2017, and they took all records that Bornstein had in his possession relating to Trump. While NBC News reports that Dr. Bornstein was handed a letter from then-White House physician Ronny Jackson, it is not clear if any release form was provided.
The goons who came to Dr. Bornstein’s offices on February 3, 2017, spent 25 to 30 minutes in the doctor’s offices, and all charts and lab reports on Trump were taken. Dr. Bornstein had served as Trump’s personal physician for more than 35 years. Dr. Bornstein said he felt “raped, frightened and sad” after the raid, and has come forward he said in response to seeing that Ronny Jackson will not return to his post as the president’s personal physician.
What is unusual about the raid is that it seems objectively unreasonable as a reaction to a doctor stating that someone has hair growth treatments. One wonders what the real purpose of the raid was and what the two Trump surrogates intended to recover from his trusted doctor who gave glowing reviews of Trump’s health in 2015 when Trump was declaring his entrance into the presidential race. Something here smells fishy – this may be more stuff that federal prosecutors must ferret out.
Daniel is a lawyer writing and teaching about SCOTUS, and is the author of the book “The Chief Justices” about the SCOTUS as seen through the center seat.