Were there any investigations or controversies about Trump's draft records or Selective Service status?
Executive summary
Yes — Donald Trump’s Vietnam-era draft record and Selective Service classifications have been the subject of sustained controversy, media scrutiny and congressional testimony, centered on five deferments (four student deferments and a later medical classification for “bone spurs”) documented in archival Selective Service files and analyzed by fact-checkers, while gaps in contemporaneous medical records and competing accounts of his intent left room for political attack and defense [1] [2] [3] [4].
1. Documentary record: what the official files show
Selectively released government records — notably the Selective Service card and classification ledger made public by the National Archives — show Trump registered for the draft in 1964, received multiple student deferments, was entered into the 1968 draft lottery, and later was classified in ways that ultimately kept him from service, including a medical-related 1‑Y classification before becoming 4‑F; those archival documents are the factual backbone of reporting on his draft history [1] [2] [5].
2. The central controversy: bone spurs, missing medical files, and motive
The flashpoint has been the 1968 medical deferment attributed to heel bone spurs — described in multiple fact-checking and news accounts as a “minor” medical deferment — and the absence of preserved contemporaneous medical documentation that would definitively explain the classification, a gap that has fueled both skepticism and conspiracy in public debate [3] [2] [5].
3. Allegations and congressional testimony that escalated scrutiny
Beyond archival records, Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen testified that Trump fabricated medical issues to avoid service, testimony aired in congressional settings and reported in national outlets; Cohen’s allegation is a high-profile claim that added a personal-credibility layer to the controversy, though it rests on Cohen’s account rather than on newly uncovered contemporaneous medical evidence [6].
4. Media, fact-checkers and competing narratives
Mainstream fact-checkers and investigative outlets have converged on the basic chronology — student deferments, a medical deferment, and a high draft‑lottery number — while emphasizing limits in available records; outlets such as Snopes and PolitiFact documented the deferments and the lottery number but also concluded that intent (whether deliberate “dodging”) is not empirically provable from the surviving paper trail, leaving room for partisan interpretation [3] [4] [2].
5. Political uses, hidden agendas and public reaction
The draft story has been repeatedly weaponized in partisan politics: critics frame it as emblematic of privilege and draft‑dodging, while defenders point to compliance with legal processes and the commonplace nature of deferments among college students of the era; both sides have incentives — opponents to paint a character flaw, allies to neutralize an attack — and that politicization has amplified the controversy beyond what the archival records alone can settle [7] [8] [9].
6. Formal investigations and unresolved limits of the record
Reporting and congressional questioning (including testimony like Cohen’s) generated political and media probes, but there is no public record in these sources of a criminal prosecution or an official government investigation that overturned the Selective Service classifications themselves; instead the dispute has remained primarily evidentiary and reputational because many Vietnam-era draft medical records were not preserved, constraining definitive resolution [6] [3] [1].
7. Bottom line: documented facts, open questions
Factually, Trump’s Selective Service entries and deferments are documented in National Archives files and corroborated by reporting and fact‑checks; the controversy centers on the legitimacy and motivation behind his medical deferment and on the broader political framing — questions for which surviving contemporaneous medical records are scarce and therefore definitive proof of intent is absent, leaving the episode an adjudicated archival fact with contested interpretation [1] [2] [3] [4].