
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders is actually claiming that raiding a doctor's office to seize his patient records is 'standard' for a new president. It definitely is not.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders described the extraordinary incursion that Trump's personal doctor considered a "raid" on his office by Trump's operatives as simply "standard procedure."

Dr. Harold Bornstein recently revealed that Trump's longtime personal bodyguard Keith Schiller and Alan Garten, chief legal officer for the Trump Organization, conducted a "raid" of his offices in February 2017. He said the Trump team even went so so far as to instruct him to take down a picture of himself with Trump on the wall.

Bornstein noted that the bizarre episode occurred just days after a story was published revealing that he gave Trump a prescription for the drug Propecia, which is used to prevent hair loss.


Despite Sanders' description of a "standard procedure," the doctor said he felt "raped, frightened and sad" after the men barged into his office.

During Tuesday's daily press briefing, NBC's Hallie Jackson asked Sanders about the raid.

"Why did Keith Schiller, who was a White House employee at the time, go and take medical records from the president's personal doctor last year?"

"As is standard operating procedure for a new president," Sanders said, "the White House medical unit took possession of the president's medical records."

Jackson followed up, noting that "it was characterized as a raid" and that "the doctor seemed to be pretty upset about it."

When another reporter followed up on the question, noting that some are describing it as a "burglary," Sanders insisted that only "one" not "some" are describing it that way and again defended the raid itself.

"Once again, it would be standard procedure for the president, a newly elected president's medical records to be in possession by the White House medical unit," Sanders said, "and that was what was taking place is those records were being transferred over to the White House medical unit as requested."

Sanders has a habit of dismissing unusual or extraordinary behavior by Trump and his underlings as simply standard behavior or in line with past presidents.

But there is nothing standard about this incident, in which the personal doctor to the president is claiming to feel "raped" by the president's bodyguard and attorney.

And if it was supposedly conducted on behalf of the White House, as Sanders claims, why was the attorney for Trump's private business part of it at all?

That isn't "standard operating procedure," and Sarah Sanders knows it.