On Wednesday December 26, The New York Times reported that a Queens podiatrist, Dr. Braunstein, who rented office space from Fred Trump, the president's father, might have given the president his diagnosis as a courtesy to his father.

Dr. Weinstein, who died in 1995, reportedly 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.

His daughters say that 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.

Elysa Braunstein and Sharon Kessel, the daughters of Larry Braunstein, told The Times that their father — as a ‘favor’ — provided the fall 1968 diagnosis of bone spurs that helped Trump get a medical exemption. In return, the doctor reportedly received access to Fred Trump, Trump’s father and owner of the Queens building in which Larry Braunstein’s practice operated.

Trump received four deferments from the draft while studying at Fordham University and the University of Pennsylvania, although he’d been found fit for duty during an examination in 1966, and had been a football and baseball player at New York Military Academy, according to The Washington Post.  After graduation, Trump was eligible to be drafted, but two months later, on September 17, 1968, he reported for an armed forces physical examination and was medically disqualified.  

The Times says 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, according to The Times.

In an interview with The Times in 2016, Mr. Trump reportedly said that a doctor provided “a very strong letter” about the bone spurs in his heels, which he then presented to draft officials.  He said he could not remember the doctor’s name. “You are talking a lot of years,” Mr. Trump said.

But he suggested he still had some paperwork related to the exemption, which he did not provide, according to The Times.

An investigation by The Times in October showed the extent to which Fred Trump had assisted his son over the years, despite Donald Trump’s insistence to the contrary.  The investigation revealed that Mr. Trump received the equivalent today of at least $413 million from his father’s real estate empire, including the equivalent of $200,000 a year by age 3.

In the 1960s, there were numerous ways to avoid military service, especially for the sons of wealthy and connected families, but Mr. Trump has said that no one pulled strings for him, The Times reports.