Daughters of NY Podiatrist: Trump’s Bone Spurs Were a Lie To Avoid Draft

Last updated on December 27th, 2018 at 09:52 am

The daughters of the late Dr. Larry Braunstein, a New York podiatrist in the 1960’s, have told the New York Times that their father helped President Donald Trump avoid the draft.

One daughter, 56-year-old Dr. Elysa Braunstein, said that her late father told her that Trump did not suffer from a debilitating foot ailment. But he gave the false diagnosis as a favor to Trump’s wealthy father Fred Trump, a New York City real estate developer who was Braunstein’s landlord.

By giving the false diagnosis of bone spurs in his feet, Dr. Braunstein helped Donald Trump avoid getting drafted during the Vietnam War.

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“I know it was a favor,” Elysa Braunstein told the Times. She then added:

“What he got was access to Fred Trump. 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.”

Her account was corroborated by her sister, Sharon Kessel.

The daughters also said that their father was assisted by Dr. Manny Weinstein, another New York podiatrist who had also moved into a Trump-owned apartment in the same year that the future president got his exemption from the military draft.

The daughters aren’t certain that Weinstein, who passed away in 1995, helped their father concoct Trump’s foot ailment, but they said their father “often mentioned” Weinstein when discussing the Trump deferment scheme.

Donald Trump’s diagnosis of bone spurs in his heels, which led to his medical exemption from the draft, occurred in the fall of 1968.

According to the Times,

“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, apparently, the mystery has been solved. And it shows that Donald Trump and his father were not just tax and business cheats, but also draft cheats. Which is consistent with everything we know about our criminal president and his criminal family.

Leo Vidal

I am a lifelong Democrat with a passion for social justice and progressive issues. I have degrees in writing, economics and law from the University of Iowa.