In the fall of 1968, Donald J. Trump received a timely diagnosis of bone spurs in his heels that led to his medical exemption from the military during Vietnam.
For 50 years, the details of how the exemption came about, and who made the diagnosis, have remained a mystery, with Mr. Trump himself saying during the presidential campaign that he could not recall who had signed off on the medical documentation.
Now a possible explanation has emerged about the documentation. It involves a foot doctor in Queens who rented his office from Mr. Trump’s father, Fred C. Trump, and a suggestion that the diagnosis was granted as a courtesy to the elder Mr. Trump.
The podiatrist, Dr. Larry Braunstein, died in 2007. But his daughters say their father often told the story of coming to the aid of a young Mr. Trump during the Vietnam War as a favor to his father.
“I know it was a favor,” said one daughter, Dr. Elysa Braunstein, 56, who along with her sister, Sharon Kessel, 53, shared the family’s account for the first time publicly when contacted by The New York Times.
Elysa Braunstein said the implication from her father was that Mr. Trump did not have a disqualifying foot ailment. “But did he examine him? I don’t know,” she said.
“What he got was access to Fred Trump,” Elysa Braunstein said. “If there was anything wrong in the building, my dad would call and Trump would take care of it immediately. That was the small favor that he got.”
No paper evidence has been found to help corroborate the version of events described by the Braunstein family, who also suggested there was some involvement by a second podiatrist, Dr. Manny Weinstein. Dr. Weinstein, who died in 1995, lived in two apartments in Brooklyn owned by Fred Trump; city directories show he moved into the first during the year Donald Trump received his exemption.
.. Beginning in October 1968, records show, Mr. Trump had a 1-Y classification, a temporary medical exemption, meaning that he could be considered for service only in the event of a national emergency or an official declaration of war, neither of which occurred during the conflict in Vietnam. In 1972, after the 1-Y classification was abolished, his status changed to 4-F, a permanent disqualification.
The doctor’s daughters said his role in Mr. Trump’s military exemption had long been the subject of discussions among relatives and friends.
“It was family lore,” said Elysa Braunstein. “It was something we would always discuss.”
She said her father was initially proud that he had helped a “famous guy” in New York real estate. But later, her father, a lifelong Democrat who had served in the Navy during World War II, grew tired of Donald Trump as he became a fixture in the tabloid gossip pages and a reality television star, she said. The daughters, both Democrats, say they are not fans of Mr. Trump.
.. Mr. Trump has had a complicated relationship with the military, having quarreled with the likes of Senator John McCain, a prisoner of war during Vietnam; the parents of a slain soldier; and the architect of the Osama bin Laden raid, even while speaking during campaign rallies about his enthusiastic support for veterans and the armed forces. He has also been critical of people who have been less than forthright about their Vietnam records. Earlier this month, he chided Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut, over misleading statements he made years ago about his own Vietnam record, calling him “Da Nang Dick” on Twitter.
I Watched “The Apprentice” So You Don’t Have To
A true story of my six-day binge-watching journey into the reality TV world of Donald Trump
Meanwhile, Omarosa, who is on the same damn team as Heidi, gets hit by a tiny piece of wood or plaster at the construction site (and I’m talking tiny, folks) and spends the entire episode complaining that she has a concussion. She shrugs it off at first, then progressively makes the situation worse and worse by refusing to participate in construction work and other tasks because she has a massive “headache.” It’s later revealed by Trump that Omarosa goes to the hospital and they find nothing wrong with her, although she insists on having a concussion and using it as an excuse to basically do nothing in the subsequent episodes.
.. A highlight from this bleak time period is during episode 13 (“The Price is Height”) when someone tries to bring notes into the boardroom to prove their case to Trump, to which Trump replies: “I don’t like notes.”
.. Kwame, on the other hand, is doing really fucking well until he decides to put Omarosa in charge of making sure Jessica Simpson gets from the airport to the hotel. And guess what she does.
She loses Jessica Simpson.
Omarosa — who faked a concussion and cried in the boardroom in front of Donald Trump — lost an entire human being, effectively putting Kwame’s chances of winning at an all time low.
.. it turns out that this “big reveal” was part of the season finale live show. The whole series was filmed months in advance (as per reality TV protocol), but the final deliberation was reenacted live the night of the episode’s airing.
Trump’s craziest claim about Russia
This is like someone on trial for bank robbery saying, “That bank wasn’t even robbed! Somebody else robbed it! And what we should really be asking is why the cops didn’t stop the bank from being robbed!”
.. This is worth discussing, however, because it’s part of a broader campaign on the part of the president and his allies to create a fog around the truth of what happened in 2016. It’s plain that he desperately wants us to forget those events, particularly his own actions and those of people around him.
We should say there’s a case to be made that President Barack Obama did not act aggressively enough to counter Russian meddling in our election. All the reports we have gotten suggest Obama was extremely reluctant to do anything that would suggest he was trying to use the resources of the federal government to help Hillary Clinton.
For instance, at one point, then-FBI Director James B. Comey suggested that he could write an op-ed explaining what Russia was doing, but Obama “replied that going public would play right into Russia’s hands by sowing doubts about the election’s legitimacy,” according to the New York Times.
.. But here’s what’s important now: Whatever you think of Obama’s decision-making, it changes nothing about what Trump and his campaign did.
And because the president is trying so hard to obscure the actual history of 2016, let’s review some facts about the Trump campaign and Russia that are not in dispute:
- Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, is under indictment for a series of crimes, some of which are connected to his relationships with a Kremlin-allied Ukrainian leader and a Russian oligarch close to Vladimir Putin. His deputy, Rick Gates, pleaded guilty to conspiracy and lying to the FBI, and is cooperating with the Mueller investigation.
- In June 2016, Donald Trump Jr. was approached by an acquaintance with an offer of dirt on Hillary Clinton from a group of Russians, which the acquaintance characterized as follows: “This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.” Don Jr. replied “I love it” and gathered Manafort and Jared Kushner to meet with the Russians.
- When the story of that meeting broke about a year later, President Trump himself reportedly dictated a false story to be given to the press, claiming that the meeting took place to discuss adoption of Russian children.
- In July 2016, Trump publicly encouraged Russia to hack into Clinton’s email.
- In 2015, Michael Flynn, who would go on to become Trump’s national security adviser, was paid $45,000 plus travel expenses to deliver a speech in Moscow at an event honoring RT, a television network that acts as a mouthpiece for the Kremlin. He sat with Putin at the dinner.
- Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to FBI investigators about his conversations with the Russian ambassador to the United States, and is cooperating with Mueller’s investigation.
- George Papadopoulos, a foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign, got the FBI counterintelligence investigation rolling when he told an Australian diplomat that the campaign had been offered dirt on Clinton from Russia in the form of hacked emails. (The diplomat passed the information along to the U.S. government.) Papadopoulos also pleaded guilty to lying to investigators and is cooperating with Mueller.
- Carter Page, another Trump foreign policy adviser, had been on the FBI radar for years before the campaign because they suspected that Russian intelligence agents were attempting to recruit him. In 2016 the FBI became concerned enough about his contacts with people connected to the Russian government that it obtained a FISA warrant to monitor him.
- Both in his confirmation hearing and on a security clearance questionnaire in preparation for becoming attorney general, Jeff Sessions claimed that he had no contact with Russian officials during the campaign. He later admitted that this was false and that he did have multiple meetings with the Russian ambassador.
- During the presidential transition, the Russian ambassador was picked up on surveillance telling his superiors that Trump’s son-in-law and close adviser, Jared Kushner, had suggested they set up a secret communications channel, perhaps within the Russian Embassy or consulate, so that Trump aides could speak to the Russians without U.S. intelligence agencies monitoring the communications. Even the Russians found this suggestion completely bonkers.
To repeat, none of that is in dispute.
Trump Dissolves Voter Fraud Commission After Pushback From States
President had blamed fraud for losing popular vote in 2016, but provided no evidence
President Donald Trump dissolved the commission he created just eight months ago to investigate his unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud in the 2016 election, bringing an end to a panel that had faced resistance from state election officials.
.. Mr. Trump formed the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity in May and installed Vice President Mike Pence as chairman after blaming voter fraud for his loss in the popular vote to Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. The panel was created despite independent experts saying there was no evidence to support his claim of widespread fraud, whether by illegal immigrants or others.
.. On Wednesday, the White House blamed the panel’s demise on states that refused to provide voter information.
.. In a statement, White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said that there was “substantial evidence of voter fraud” but that the White House didn’t want to “engage in endless battles at taxpayer expense.”
.. An analysis by the Brennan Center, a nonpartisan law and policy think tank, has found that votes by noncitizens account for between 0.0003% and 0.001% of all votes cast.