Democrat members of Congress are plotting with a group of psychiatrists led by Dr. Bandy X. Lee to conduct a medical coup to remove President Donald Trump from office, according to interviews given this week by Lee.

Lee, who claims Trump’s presidency could be “the end of humankind”, has already decided Trump should be removed from office. A ‘go team’ of medical professionals is being assembled to swoop in and forcibly remove Trump to evaluate his fitness for office, according to Lee.

Dr. Bandy X. Lee, image via screen grab/NY Daily News.

Lee, a Yale University psychiatry professor, has been waging a Maoist style campaign for the past year to get Trump removed from office for alleged psychiatric reasons. As part of her campaign, Lee released a collection of essays in book form last October titled, “THE DANGEROUS CASE OF DONALD TRUMP; 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President”

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An excerpt of the description of the book by publisher, St. Martin’s Press:

…In THE DANGEROUS CASE OF DONALD TRUMP, twenty-seven psychiatrists, psychologists, and other mental health experts argue that, in Mr. Trump’s case, their moral and civic “duty to warn” America supersedes professional neutrality. They then explore Trump’s symptoms and potentially relevant diagnoses to find a complex, if also dangerously mad, man. …His madness is catching, too. From the trauma people have experienced under the Trump administration to the cult-like characteristics of his followers, he has created unprecedented mental health consequences across our nation and beyond. It’s not all in our heads. It’s in his.”

Politico reported on Wednesday that Lee (along with NYU’s Dr. James Gilligan), met with House and Senate Democrats in Congress last month (and one Republican senator in an impromptu setting according to the Weekly Standard.)

In private meetings with more than a dozen members of Congress held on Dec. 5 and 6, Lee briefed lawmakers — all Democrats except for one Republican senator, whom Lee declined to identify. Her professional warning to Capitol Hill: “He’s going to unravel, and we are seeing the signs.” In an interview, she pointed to Trump “going back to conspiracy theories, denying things he has admitted before, his being drawn to violent videos.” Lee also warned, “We feel that the rush of tweeting is an indication of his falling apart under stress. Trump is going to get worse and will become uncontainable with the pressures of the presidency.” Lee, editor of “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump,” which includes testimonials from 27 psychiatrists and mental health experts assessing the president’s level of “dangerousness,” said that she was surprised by the interest in her findings during her two days in Washington. “One senator said that it was the meeting he most looked forward to in 11 years,” Lee recalled. “Their level of concern about the president’s dangerousness was surprisingly high.”

The Weekly Standard reported on Lee’s “meeting” with a Republican senator.

…With the exception of 12 Senate offices which we didn’t hear back from in time, every Republican office flatly denied meeting with Lee. There’s a reason for that. In an on-the-record phone call with TWS Saturday afternoon, Lee admitted her “meeting” with a Republican senator was not actually scheduled and that it was, in her own words, “accidental.” “The meeting happened—it wasn’t arranged in advance,” she said. “It was accidental. It was incidental, I will say. It was incidental.” …Whatever the circumstances of the encounter, when TWS asked whether the nameless Republican senator was sympathetic to her view of Trump’s mental health, Lee was quick to admit they were not. “No,” she answered. “I mean, they engaged us, but that’s about it.” Pushed for further details about the identity of the GOP senator, Lee said she had been “trying to keep it confidential, because it’s a sensitive issue,” and added that she did not reveal to Politico—even off the record—who the Republican senator was…”

Lee also spoke to the New York Daily News about the meetings. Lee claimed Trump’s presidency could bring about the end of humankind.

…Lee gave a presentation on why Trump posed a “public health risk” to the group of Democrats — and one lone Republican — during the private meetings that lasted more than 16 hours during the course of two days, Politico first reported. “From a medical perspective, when we see someone unraveling like this, it’s an emergency,” Lee said. “We’ve never come so close in my career to this level of catastrophic violence that could be the end of humankind.” …The response from the lawmakers, Lee said, was overwhelming. “What astonished us was how enthusiastic they were to speak with us,” she said. The politicians questioned Trump’s fitness to serve from a legal perspective, according to Lee, who added, “Their main concern was getting Republicans on board.” “What they were saying is that Republicans were also concerned [about Trump’s mental health] — possibly equally concerned, but as to whether they would act, that was a different question,” she said…”

Politico reported on a statement Lee and her two Ivy League comrades, Harvard’s Judith Herman and Columbia’s Robert Jay Lifton, released Wednesday, and on additional meetings Lee will be having with Congressional Democrats.

On Wednesday, Lee and two other medical professionals released a statement following Trump’s late night Tweet baiting Kim Jung Un into a potential nuclear war. “We write as mental health professionals who have been deeply concerned about Donald Trump’s psychological aberrations,” the statement read. “We believe that he is now further unraveling in ways that contribute to his belligerent nuclear threats. … We urge that those around him, and our elected representatives in general, take urgent steps to restrain his behavior and head off the potential nuclear catastrophe that endangers not only Korea and the United States but all of humankind.” The statement, released on behalf of the National Coalition of Concerned Mental Health Experts, was signed by more than 100 medical professionals. …Later this month, she has been invited to speak in front of another group of lawmakers, hosted by Connecticut Democratic Rep. Rosa DeLauro at her home. And she has been invited to speak at a town hall by Maryland Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin, who has proposed a bill to set up a commission to evaluate the president’s fitness for office…”

In December, NBC News published an opinion article by Lee in which she inadvertently makes clear her opposition to Trump is based on her political bias.

As has been made clear by his actions repeatedly, our current president believes that he is special: he is free to obstruct justice when deems it necessary, he can lie without consequences, he does not need to worry about potential consequences. But medicine is an equalizer, and the president may find soon that he cannot outrun his own condition.”

Lee told CNN this week she is seeing things in Trump the average person isn’t able to see. Lee also denied having a political bias.

The meeting between Lee and members of Congress was set up through a former US Attorney with ties to Capitol Hill who approached Lee at the request of a “number of lawmakers,” she said. Lee provided them a briefing based on her book on the subject. Dr. James Gilligan — another psychiatrist — an expert on studying and predicting violence, also made a presentation. “Mr. Trump is showing signs of impairment that the average person could not see,” Lee said. “He is becoming very unstable very quickly. There is a need for neuropsychiatric evaluation that would demonstrate his capacity to serve.” …Lee rejected claims that her research is any way politically motivated. “I am uninterested in partisan politics, I have never registered for a political party,” she said. “Ideology doesn’t interest me.”

Lee did a lengthy interview with Vox that was published Saturday in which she spoke about the growing effort to forcibly remove Trump from office and her concerns that would look like a coup and provoke a violent insurrection. Lee also spoke about the “moral and professional authority” of her co-conspirators.(Note: The interview should be read in its entirety.)

…On the other hand, in the book we have as authors Phil Zimbardo, Judith Herman, and Robert Jay Lifton, who are notable not only for their contributions to mental health but for their amazing ethical record. These are living legends who have also stood on the right side of history, even when it was difficult, and they stand as beacons for me. No one matches their moral and professional authority, in my mind. Eliza Barclay

Okay, so you’re calling for an evaluation; you’re serious about that. How could he possibly be evaluated, since it seems like he wouldn’t voluntarily do it? Bandy Lee

We encounter this often in mental health. Those who most require an evaluation are the least likely to submit to one. That is the reason why in all 50 states we have not only the legal authority, but often the legal obligation, to contain someone even against their will when it’s an emergency. So in an emergency, neither consent nor confidentiality requirements hold. Safety comes first. What we do in the case of danger is we contain the person, we remove them from access to weapons, and we do an urgent evaluation. This is what we have been calling for with the president based on basic medical standards of care. Surprisingly, many lawyer groups have actually volunteered, on their own, to file for a court paper to ensure that the security staff will cooperate with us. But we have declined, since this will really look like a coup, and while we are trying to prevent violence, we don’t wish to incite it through, say, an insurrection. …That was when a former assistant US attorney stepped in and used her contacts to arrange for meetings with a dozen key Congress members [including Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD)] on December 5 and 6. James Gilligan of NYU, one of the foremost experts on violence in the country, and I went and spoke to them about medical matters only, to share our medical knowledge and concern. Eliza Barclay

And how did those conversations go? Bandy Lee

They received us enthusiastically! Their level of concern was surprisingly high. From the dozen we have met with, it seemed they were already convinced of the dangerousness of the president and the need for an evaluation. Another thing that has been happening on the side is that a clinic at Yale Law School recommended that we be ready to respond emergently, within an hour or two of being called. So we have been doing both: A DC-based psychiatrist has been collecting names of colleagues would be willing to respond in an emergency, and members of the National Academy of Medicine have been recruited for helping us to select candidates for an independent expert panel. This month, I will be meeting with additional lawmakers to discuss what else we need to do. I have also been put in touch with the original drafters of the 25th Amendment at Fordham Law School, and so we’ll see if they will give input. Now, the president is undergoing a physical exam on January 12. The usual physical exam does not usually entail a thorough exam of mental fitness for duty, but we are hoping that some form of capacity exam will be included… Eliza Barclay

Won’t your whole effort just be perceived by Republicans as inherently political and not independent? How do you get around that? Bandy Lee

This is the troubling question. We have seen how everything can be turned political, even a strictly rule-bound criminal investigation by an independent special counsel! When we met with some of the lawmakers, it was before the tax reform bill, and it was apparent that there were Republican Congress members who were equally concerned about danger. But then we saw the overwhelming support of the president for their own political goals — even Sen. Bob Corker, who had publicly expressed concerns about World War III! While we were on Capitol Hill, Democratic Congress members were telling us that Democrats would have no trouble acting on their concerns, but the question was, would Republicans? In other words, the concern was pervasive, but the question was whether they would find it politically feasible to express their concern. Well, if the concern is World War III and political ends trump those concerns, then the chances of our not being politicized are very slim. What we need to do is to remove the danger as quickly as possible. We are used to this in psychiatry, and the law allows us to curtail liberties in this way because patients later return to thank us. But this is very hard to explain to anyone outside the field who [is] not used to dealing with disorder of this kind. The bind is that the longer we wait, the harder it will be, and the destructiveness will only increase.”

Complete Vox interview at this link.

Lee will be speaking in Berkeley on January 17, presented by KPFA-FM.

But her cause is not political according to her bio for the event.