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How did Trump’s medical records and the National Archives document or contradict the bone spurs claim?
Executive summary
Most government draft records showing why Donald Trump received a 1968 medical deferment are limited or missing; National Archives holdings confirm his Selective Service draft card and classification ledger but say "most detailed government medical records related to the draft no longer exist," leaving the bone‑spurs claim supported by contemporaneous Selective Service entries but not by preserved medical documentation [1] [2]. Reporting since 2018 adds competing accounts — daughters of a Queens podiatrist say their father signed a favorable diagnosis as a "favor," while Trump has long described receiving a doctor’s "very strong letter"; archives and Selective Service documents confirm deferments but not the medical evidence that produced the exemption [3] [1] [4].
1. What the National Archives actually hold: draft cards and classification ledgers
The National Archives has posted Donald J. Trump’s Selective Service draft card and the Selective Service classification ledger showing his multiple deferments; those records document four student deferments and a later medical deferment but do not include the contemporaneous physician’s exams or X‑rays that would normally substantiate a medical exemption because such detailed medical files "no longer exist," according to the archives cited in reporting [2] [1]. The Smoking Gun and Snopes relied on NARA’s Selective Service extracts to trace Trump’s deferment history, confirming the paper trail of classifications even as the clinical backup is absent from the public federal holdings [4] [5].
2. What Trump has said and what journalists found
Trump has repeatedly said he got a "very strong letter" from a doctor about heel bone spurs and described the condition as "temporary" and "minor"; he has not publicly produced that original draft‑age medical letter or medical imaging in the public record, and reporting notes gaps and inconsistency in his accounts [1] [3]. Journalistic investigations, notably by The New York Times, have interviewed family members of local podiatrists and obtained recollections suggesting the diagnosis existed in some form but stopping short of reproducing physician records that would independently verify the clinical finding [1] [3].
3. The allegation of a favor and competing explanations
Daughters of a Queens podiatrist told reporters their father diagnosed Trump with bone spurs as a favor to landlord Fred Trump; that account frames the diagnosis as a social or transactional accommodation rather than a strictly clinical determination, and it directly challenges the narrative that the deferment reflected a routine, independently verified medical finding [1] [3]. Other sources note that bone spurs can be a real disabling condition for some people, and defenders argue a minor but genuine condition could plausibly justify a short medical deferment — but available public records do not allow medical adjudication one way or the other [6] [7].
4. What Michael Cohen and others have testified or claimed
Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer, testified that when he asked Trump for documentation related to the bone‑spurs deferment, Trump provided none and said there was no surgery; Cohen used that to claim the injury was contrived. That is a testimonial allegation and not an archival source; the National Archives’ holdings neither confirm nor refute Cohen’s claim because the detailed medical files are not preserved in the public archive [8] [1]. Where a source explicitly refutes a claim, reporters cite the absence of preserved clinical records rather than a definitive archival disproof [1].
5. Where evidence is strong and where it is weak
Strong evidence: federal Selective Service documents in the National Archives and public FOIA releases show Trump’s classification history — student deferments and a 1968 medical deferment — and his eventual lottery number that kept him from service [2] [4] [7]. Weak evidence: contemporaneous medical documentation (doctor’s notes, X‑rays, imaging, or a preserved physician’s letter uploaded by Trump) that would clinically substantiate bone spurs is not in the cited archives or public reporting; multiple outlets explicitly state such detailed government medical records from that era were not preserved [1] [2].
6. What readers should take away
Available sources confirm the administrative fact of a medical deferment recorded in National Archives‑held Selective Service materials, while also documenting that "most detailed government medical records related to the draft no longer exist," leaving the medical reality of heel spurs unsupported by preserved clinical files in the public record [2] [1]. Competing strands of reporting exist — personal recollections from physician family members suggesting a favor, Trump’s own vague recollections about a "very strong letter," and assertions from a former lawyer that no records were produced — and none of those strands is fully corroborated by archived medical documentation that the National Archives holds [3] [1] [8].
Limitations: reporting relies on the archival paper trail that survives and on interviews and testimony; where the archives lack clinical records, available sources do not mention definitive medical proof either supporting or disproving the bone‑spurs diagnosis beyond the Selective Service classification entries [1] [2].