Holy shit.
President Trump’s ex-personal doctor, Dr. Harold Bornstein, says that White House aides showed up to “raid” his office last year, taking all of Trump’s medical records in an incident that left him feeling “raped,” NBC News reported Tuesday. Dr. Bornstein, who was Trump’s New York doctor for three decades, said that Trump’s personal bodyguard, a top Trump Organization lawyer, and a third man seized the president’s medical records two days after Bornstein told The New York Times that Trump takes a hair growth medication.
This White House will not be deterred in its indefatigable pursuit of new and previously inconceivable ways to both embarrass itself and the country.
If Trump sent his bodyguard in to seize medical records that he had no right to seize – medical records always belong to the practitioner, though the patient has a right to a copy of the records – all because the man said that Trump had been prescribed Propecia, I am going to have to seriously consider giving up my American citizenship.
Please recall, ordinarily, speaking of anyone’s health status, including medications prescribed, would be a gross violation of medical ethics. But, here, Trump had used Dr. Bornstein as a medical “reference” because he had chosen to not undergo a physical and make the results public like other candidates for president. Thus, noting that Trump had been prescribed any medication would fall within the authorization of having Dr. Bornstein speak to the media at all. Other candidates released the full findings of their medical physical, which would include a list of all medications taken.
This actually could be a much bigger deal than it would seem at first blush. Again, Trump had absolutely no right to those original records. He had a right to a copy of those records. He had a right to seek a court order to “cease and desist” speaking about the President’s health in any way. He had the right to sue the doctor for violations of doctor-patient confidentiality if he believed the doctor revealed more than authorized. Trump might have even had the right to have a court order the records destroyed if he could prove the doctor could not be trusted with them. But, Trump did not have the right to barge into the office and remove the records in a raid, anymore than you or I would have the right to do so. Furthermore, because Trump is the president of the country, and head of the executive branch, one could say he had LESS an ability to “raid” this office since any such raid would be carried out “under the color of law” given that Trump “ordered” or “deputized” people to do something that ordinarily could not be done. Any such “raid” conducted under the color of law could be done only WITH a court order.
As if the situation need be worse, it appears that the raid really was motivated by the fact that Donald Trump did not want you to know that he took hair pills.
I realize that the universe is fourteen billion years old, and fourteen billion years is a long time, long enough that one would expect that nature could concoct and evolve some extremely vain and petty creatures. But, until now, I would not have considered fourteen billion years sufficient time to come up with this, this type of “perfection” in vanity, pettiness, corruption, arrogance, and disgust for the law or anyone else. Nope, not enough time, maybe 20 billion, maybe ….
This requires an investigation.
You know that, correct?
Recall that a minor part of the Watergate drama was the break-in to a psychiatrists office looking for medical records. If Trump abused his authority as president to authorize an illegal “raid” that left this physician feeling “raped” and deprived of his own property (His medical records), then there is no choice but to investigate this, too, as a gross abuse of office, and a crime.
Sorry, but it is true.
One last thing before we leave this topic, for now? This is the exact type of thing third world dictators do, they order their loyal strongmen to ransack other people’s property, leaving them feeling victimized, and destroy records that may embarrass the dictator. Yep, happens all the time in the average banana republic.
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