On the morning of March 29th, 2016 Donald Trump’s Campaign Manager, Corey Lewandowski, turned himself in to Florida Police. This surrender comes after Lewandowski was charged with battery regarding an alleged incident that occurred at a Trump campaign event earlier this month. On March 8th, 2016 a then Breitbart reporter, Michelle Fields, is allegedly physically harmed as Lewandowski grabs her arm as she attempt to ask Trump a question. Two days later on March 10th, Fields released a photo of her arm on twitter that appears to show bruising where she was allegedly grabbed by Lewandowski. That same day, Lewandowski responded by tweeting “@MichelleFields You are totally delusional. I never touched you. In fact, I have never even met you”.
Over the next few days many came out in defense of Fields including Katie Pavlich and Dana Loesch, defending Fields via Twitter. On March 14th, Fields and three of her colleagues resigned from their positions at Breitbart. Among the three was Breitbart editor-at- large Ben Sharpiro. In his departing statement on March 14th, Shapiro said “the site should be “ashamed” of “their treatment” of Fields, whose allegations of assault came amid escalating violence in and around Trump campaign events. Fields stated that her resignation was contingent on her [ not believing] Breitbart News has adequately stood by [ her] during the events of the past week.
As a result of the misdemeanor charge filed against Lewandowski the Trump Campaign has come out in defense of their staffer saying that “Lewandowski is absolutely innocent of this charge…He will enter a plea of not guilty and looks forward to his day in court”.
Lewandowski is scheduled to appear in court on May 4th. While representatives from either side have yet to make official statements regarding the trial, it would be a safe assumption to say that the video that the Jupiter Police released will be used as evidence in court. The official Jupiter Police report states the video, along with an interview that Fields gave “probable cause…to charge Corey Lewandowski”.
Many speculate that this is just one instance of violent behavior that occurs at Trump events, but as of now this is the only official legal charge against any Trump staffer for such behavior.
