On Wednesday night, before Washington was completely consumed by Michael Wolff’s West Wing tell-all, Politico published a piece feeding into a different frenzy: the notion that Congress was concerned President Trump might be mentally unfit for office.
The article, titled “Washington’s growing obsession: The 25th amendment,” claims that more than a dozen lawmakers—all Democrats, with the exception of one nameless Republican senator—attended private briefings in early December with a Yale psychiatry professor to discuss Trump’s mental health.
The most interesting detail of the story, of course, was that one rebellious Republican senator had met with Dr. Bandy Lee to discuss her belief that Trump is unfit to serve as commander-in-chief. Politico reported that Lee refused to name the GOP lawmaker she claimed to have had a meeting with.
THE WEEKLY STANDARD reached out to every Republican Senate office to figure out which senator met with Dr. Lee, and was unable to confirm that any Republican Senator actually met with the Yale professor.
“Lol no,” one senior Senate GOP aide responded when TWS asked whether his boss was the nameless Republican senator in the Politico story.
Arizona Republican Jeff Flake’s spokesperson said the office received a meeting request from Lee, but that Flake did not attend. Senator Bob Corker’s office said it was not Corker. Offices of other GOP senators who have criticized Trump in the past were quick to deny such a meeting took place as well.
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.”
The only details Lee recounted to TWS were that the interaction allegedly took place on December 5, when she was in a Senate office building. Asked whether her “meeting” with a Republican senator happened in an office hallway, where visitors often get a chance to see lawmakers in transit, Lee paused.
“I won’t comment. I’m sorry,” she answered.
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.
Politico declined to comment when contacted about Lee’s comments Saturday afternoon.
Jenna Lifhits contributed to this report.
