Pence’s Doctor Resigns as White House Medical Shake-Up Continues

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White House officials and others familiar with the situation said the circumstances surrounding Dr. Jackson’s fall from grace and Dr. Pena’s departure dated back many years, to longstanding divisions in the medical unit — which is part of the military — where there are two factions that do not get along.

Dr. Pena — known to patients simply as “Dr. Jen” — submitted her memos about Dr. Jackson last fall to Nick Ayers, Mr. Pence’s chief of staff, who shared them with John F. Kelly, Mr. Trump’s chief of staff, according to a person familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations. Both Mr. Ayers and Mr. Kelly directed Dr. Pena to go through her military chain of command to address the issue, the person said.

CNN, which obtained the memos, reported that Dr. Pena had accused Dr. Jackson of having intervened in a medical matter involving Karen Pence, Mr. Pence’s wife, and possibly violating her medical privacy rights. She also said Dr. Jackson had become irate and aggressive during a confrontation over the situation, and that he had fostered an unprofessional atmosphere in the medical unit.

Dr. Jackson, an Iraq war veteran, has insisted that all the allegations against him were untrue, an assertion backed up by Mr. Trump and numerous White House aides from the current and previous administration.

But some members of the medical unit, which houses a few dozen doctors and nurses, described Dr. Jackson as a bully and a sloppy record-keeper, who drank too much — sometimes becoming intoxicated during overseas trips with the president — and loosely dispensed strong drugs to curry favor with the powerful politicians and political aides he admired. Several of them detailed the alleged misconduct in interviews with the Democratic staff of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee.

Despite Mr. Trump’s strong defense of him, Dr. Jackson has not resumed his job as the top physician in the medical unit since he announced his withdrawal from consideration as secretary of veterans affairs. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, said on Tuesday that another doctor, Sean Conley, who had been acting in Dr. Jackson’s role while he prepared for confirmation hearings, would stay in the post instead.

“Dr. Jackson continues to be an active-duty Navy doctor that’s assigned here at the White House,” Ms. Sanders said, “where there are a number of doctors that are part of the White House Medical Unit.”

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Trump’s Former Doctor Says Office Was Raided and Files Seized

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WASHINGTON — President Trump’s longtime physician said in an interview published Tuesday that after he told The New York Times that Mr. Trump took a drug to promote hair growth, two Trump aides staged what he called “a raid” of his Manhattan office in February 2017 and removed all of Mr. Trump’s medical files.

Dr. Harold N. Bornstein, who served as Mr. Trump’s personal doctor for 36 years, told NBC News that the roughly half-hour encounter left him feeling “raped, frightened and sad.” He said that since the president’s bodyguard, Keith Schiller, accompanied by a lawyer for the Trump Organization, Alan Garten, and a third man he did not recognize took the files, he has had no contact with Mr. Trump and been effectively removed from his orbit.

In a brief phone call with The Times on Tuesday, Dr. Bornstein did not elaborate on what he told NBC except to say that his earlier interviews with a reporter for the newspaper had caused him “torture for more than a year.” He demanded an apology and a large donation in his name to Tufts University, where he completed medical school. The Times declined both requests.

Dr. Bornstein had privately told several associates that he had been the target of a raid during which handwritten records and printed laboratory results were seized, but he had declined to answer questions publicly about the episode until this week.

He told NBC that he decided to speak out after seeing reports that Dr. Ronny L. Jackson, the president’s nominee to run the Department of Veterans Affairs, had been accused of doling out medications and behaving inappropriately while serving as the White House physician. Dr. Jackson withdrew from consideration for the post shortly afterward.

Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, said Tuesday that Dr. Jackson would return to the White House medical unit but not as Mr. Trump’s physician. She said Dr. Sean Conley, a Navy commander who has been the acting White House physician since Dr. Jackson’s nomination to the cabinet, would replace him.

“This is like a celebration for me,” Dr. Bornstein said.

Ms. Sanders dismissed Dr. Bornstein’s description of the visit by the three men as a raid. In a briefing with reporters, she said that the files had been removed by the White House medical unit as part of a standard transition procedure.

“The White House medical unit took possession of the president’s medical records,” Ms. Sanders said. Asked whether the visit was a raid carried out by Mr. Schiller, she replied, “That is not my understanding.” She did not address why Mr. Schiller, who was not a part of the unit, had been present.

Dr. Bornstein said that he was not given a standard release form conforming to Hipaa regulations to sign over Mr. Trump’s records before they were taken. But Ms. Sanders said that the White House medical unit supplied Dr. Bornstein with a letter requesting the records.

The Trump Organization, which at the time employed both Mr. Schiller and Mr. Garten, declined to comment.

In his initial interviews with The New York Times in 2017, Dr. Bornstein made no secret of the fact that he had wanted to be the White House physician.

During the presidential campaign, he wrote two letters vouching for Mr. Trump’s health. In December 2015, he said that Mr. Trump would be “the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency,” and in September 2016, he said that Mr. Trump was “in excellent physical health.” (As his frustrations appeared to mount on Tuesday, Dr. Bornstein told CNN that Mr. Trump had dictated the contents of the first letter.)

Dr. Bornstein quickly fell out of favor with Mr. Trump after the Times article, in which he gave a public accounting of Mr. Trump’s health and complained about the poor seats he was assigned at the president’s inauguration.

In the Times interviews — for which he also asked for a donation in his name to Tufts, a request The Times also declined — Dr. Bornstein discussed Mr. Trump’s medical history and bragged about having “every phone number for him and all the wives,” whom he also treated. He said Mr. Trump, rumored to be a germaphobe, “changes the paper on the table himself” after examinations.

He also described the medications Mr. Trump was taking: antibiotics to control rosacea, a statin for elevated blood cholesterol and lipids, and finasteride, a prostate-related drug to promote hair growth.

“He has all his hair,” said Dr. Bornstein, who also took the drug. He also slipped in a boast about his own shoulder-length coif: “I have all my hair.”

Among other claims he made to NBC about the confrontation in his office, Dr. Bornstein said Mr. Schiller and Mr. Garten instructed him to remove a photo of Mr. Trump from the wall. As his lopsided news media tour continued, Dr. Bornstein also fielded a brief call from CBS.

“Sweetheart, this is Watergate. Goodbye!” the doctor said to a producer for the network before hanging up.

Nate Schweber contributed reporting from New York, and Julie Hirschfeld Davis from Washington.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A14 of the New York edition with the headline: Doctor Says Trump Aides Raided His Office for Files. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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