Bending the lever: It's thin fore/aft but thick and strong laterally, the way you would bend it. It would bend at the juncture of the lever paddle and the thinner disc part, and a) possible fracture, or b) possibly make the disc bent, and then it has problems with function. However, if easy to get a replacement matching lever, you could try it. Personally, BD should ship you a new bike and pay for return shipping on that one. Make sure they check same on replacement bike.

I bought 5 forged knives from a kitchen supply online. 4 out of 5 had a "cast" of the blade to the handle, to the right. I shipped those back and requested replacement, checking for that before shipping. New shipment, 3 out of 4 were bent same (exactly the same, so this was a process problem with the maker). I sent those 3 back and kept the 2 straight ones.