Psychiatrists Comment on Trump's Lack of Fitness for Office

Salon reports on a detailed analysis of the Mueller report by a panel of psychiatrists. The analysis was to assess President trump's mental fitness for office. The Mueller report includes detailed data that bears on Trump's state of mind and the basis on which he makes decisions in office. Salon writes:

Dr. Bandy Lee, who is a professor of psychiatry at the Yale School of Medicine and editor of the bestselling book "The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump" convened a panel comprised of leading mental health experts to evaluate Donald Trump based upon his behavior as detailed in the Mueller report.

Their definitive conclusion: Trump is mentally unfit, a threat to the United States and the world, and as such should have his powers severely restricted. At the invitation of several Democratic members of Congress, Lee and other mental health professionals will present their findings about Donald Trump's mental health at what they hope will be a bipartisan congressional meeting in Washington next month.

In a YouTube video, Dr. Lee, a forensic psychiatrist comments further, alleging that the president "failed every criterion for rational and reality-based decision-making capacity. Our assessment is definitive. Our recommendations were, first and foremost, to remove Mr. Trump from access to nuclear weapons and war-making powers. We could offer many more, but given the urgency, we decided to focus on the two most important." The psychiatrists concluded that Trump "can no longer see reality. His actions are exactly what we would predict from an individual who lacks mental capacity."



Dr. Lee goes on to assert that the situation could have been avoided if the president and vice president were subject to fitness-for-duty tests before taking office. Military personnel who deal with nuclear weapons are subject to such mandatory psychological testing annually. She pointed out that the panel's assessment looked for impaired decision making as evidenced by low levels of impulsivity, recklessness, paranoia, and false beliefs. The psychiatrists found Tump is highly impaired in his decision-making function, but they made no clinical diagnosis.

It is important to note that the psychiatrists considered the evidence in the Mueller report, much of it sworn testimony, to be of higher quality and quantity than they usually worked with. That led to confidence in their function analysis: "The wealth and quality of the report’s content made this possible. In fact, we had more and better data, under sworn testimony, than we have ever had in our usual practice."

The panel invited the President to come in for an in-person exam if he believed their assessment was incorrect. Obviously, the President will never do that.

This is more evidence of the president's unfitness for office, something that arguably should have been obvious to most open-minded people by now.

B&B orig: 7/10/19