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On 10 January 2018, an article posted to the web site of white supremacist online radio host Hal Turner reported — falsely — that Dr. Bandy Lee, a renowned psychiatrist and violence expert at Yale University who has been vocal about her views on the deleterious societal effects of President Donald Trump's mental state and presidency, did not have a medical license: As proof of this claim, Turner posted a screen shot from a Connecticut professional license database along with triumphal text boasting his purported discovery that Lee's physician's license had lapsed: Medical doctors are required to be licensed by the states they practice in, and some maintain multiple licenses. So it wouldn't be far-fetched to think that, even if Dr. Lee did not have a current license in Connecticut, she might hold one in another state. Despite this likelihood, and the fact Hal Turner is a brazen white supremacist, similar articles raising doubts about the status of Dr. Lee's professional license also appeared on larger conservative web sites. First Campus Reform posted the story, splashing their proprietary watermark over the public record showing Lee's license as lapsed in Connecticut, and then the Daily Caller picked it up. Campus Reform, a right wing web site funded by the Leadership Institute, that trawls the Internet and social media for signs of perceived liberalism on college campuses, reported: Nonetheless, Dr. Lee does hold an active physician's license in the state of New York: In a phone interview, Dr. Lee told us that the explanation for her lapsed license in Connecticut is a simple one: she previously held medical licenses in three states — California, Connecticut, and New York. (She also held a license in France for five years while working for the Ministry of Justice there.) But because her work as a forensic psychiatrist specializing in violence has led her to perform mostly consultation and policy-oriented work, she decided that holding multiple state licences wasn't practical or necessary: Peter Fricke, editor of Campus Reform (a publication that claims to hold itself to rigorous journalism standards) told us they published the story headlined Records show psych prof who 'diagnosed' Trump lacks license without all the relevant information one would expect in such an article because when they reached out to Dr. Lee, she didn't specify which state she was currently licensed in. Nevertheless, Fricke told us that he felt it was valuable to report Lee doesn't hold a current Connecticut license, because she is on the faculty at Yale (which is in New Haven): Lee has become yet another focus of disreputable partisan web sites that help foster online hate from some supporters of President Donald Trump. She found herself in the spotlight most recently after Politico reported on 3 January 2018 that she had traveled to Capitol Hill one month earlier to warn lawmakers that President Trump's instability is a public danger, and that it will only get worse as time goes on. Lee also edited the October 2017 book The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President, and in mid-January 2018, she authored two op-eds in large publications delineating her concerns. Lee told us she deleted her Twitter account because after gaining the type of toxic, hyperpartisan attention that is now commonplace on social media, she started receiving death threats which caused her to be so fearful that she now wears a disguise whenever she steps outside. Aside from the political controversy, Lee and her cohort made intra-disciplinary waves on 9 January 2018, when the American Psychiatric Association put out a statement calling for an end to armchair psychiatry, saying doctors evaluating public figures they have not personally examined violates the Goldwater Rule, an ethical principle that guides physician members of the APA to refrain from publicly issuing professional medical opinions about individuals that they have not personally evaluated in a professional setting or context. Lee told us despite this criticism, she feels it is in fact unethical for her to remain silent and that it is her professional duty to caution the public about what she and other experts see as a threat:
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