‘Severely Impaired’ Donald Trump Goes On Pardon Spree To ‘Serve His Fragile Sense Of Self,’ Psychiatrist Says
Donald Trump on Tuesday issued a flurry of pardons and commuted sentences, including to Michael Milken, the face of Wall Street scandals in the 1980s, and former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik — a close associate of current Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani. But beyond his seeming affinity for pardoning white-collar criminals convicted of corruption, Trump’s pardons show him attempting “to inverse the reality he cannot tolerate,” according to Yale University Psychiatrist Bandy X. Lee via her Twitter account.
By pardoning Milken and Kerik, and even commuting the sentence of impeached Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, Trump shows himself as a “severely impaired and incapable leader” for whom “legal becomes criminal, propaganda becomes the truth, and delusion becomes reality,” according to Lee, who has been a frequent critic of Trump. She is a co-author of the 2017 book The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump, in which several mental health professionals comment on Trump’s psychological condition.
Trump has issued the pardons only to “serve his fragile sense of self,” Lee wrote, adding that in her view, no amount of pardons or other “external compensation” can fulfill Trump’s psychological “internal needs.” As a result, Trump will continue to issue such pardons, risking that the United States will become a “pathocracy,” which Lee defines as “mental pathology’s takeover of society.”
The pardons of Milken and Kerik, as well as the commutation of Blagojevich’s 14-year sentence on 17 corruption convictions, were among a wave of 11 such grants of clemency declared by Trump on Tuesday. Among them, the pardon of Milken may be the most high-profile. In a statement, White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham called Milken “one of America’s greatest financiers” who pioneered “the use of high-yield bonds in corporate finance,” as quoted by CNBC.
Milken used the high-yield bonds, more commonly known as “junk bonds,” to underwrite some of the largest corporate takeovers and mergers of the 1980s. He ultimately pleaded guilty to racketeering and fraud charges, and was sentenced to 10 years in prison, as well as ordered to pay $600 million in fines. But he served only two years behind bars after he agreed to cooperate with federal investigators in their investigation of Wall Street corruption that sent many top financial industry figures to prison.
Though Giuliani was the United States attorney who prosecuted Milken in 1990, he more recently became one of the leading advocates of a pardon for the disgraced financier, who has since rehabilitated his reputation with a series of well-publicized philanthropic undertakings.
Lee in her Tuesday Twitter posts stated that though Trump will never satisfy his psychological need to alter reality in his favor, his behavior may be managed by “limit setting and getting him to accept reality.”
Just last week, Lee recommended that Democrats impose “limits” on Trump by initiating a second impeachment inquiry against him, or by invoking the 25th Amendment, under which a president may be removed due to mental or physical inability to carry out his job.
