IN CASE AGAINST FORMER TRUMP CAMPAIGN MANAGER
by Sharon Rondeau
(Jun. 28, 2016) — On Monday, June 20, Donald Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski announced on CNN that he had been dismissed from his post following a successful primary season in which the candidate garnered more Republican votes than in any other primary season in U.S. history.
Lewandowski’s interview with CNN’s Dana Bash followed a statement from Trump campaign spokeswoman Hope Hicks announcing the change while expressing gratitude to Lewandowski for his “hard work and dedication.”
The following day, former Breitbart reporter Michelle Fields gave an interview to Steve Malzberg of Newsmax TV in which she discussed her new book, “Barons of the Beltway: Inside the Princely World of Our Washington Elite–and How to Overthrow Them,” and her accusation of “simple battery” against Lewandowski filed with the Jupiter, FL Police Department in March arising from a Trump campaign event.
Fields had claimed that Lewandowski had “aggressively tried to pull me to the ground,” with eyewitness Washington Post write Ben Terris affirming her claim.
During the interview, Malzberg read what he said was a quote from the book wherein Fields reportedly wrote of the incident, “I lost my balance and nearly fell to the ground…” Fields denied that the passage appears in the book, although Malzberg cited the page numbers.
Claiming that her employer did not fully support her after the incident became public, Fields and a Breitbart editor, Ben Shapiro, resigned along with three other Breitbart employees, with Fields and Shapiro making their announcement through Buzzfeed News on March 14.
On March 11, Fields filed a complaint with the Jupiter Police Department, allegedly showing photos of bruises on her left lower arm An investigation of Fields’s battery claim ensued by Palm Beach County State’s Attorney Dave Aronberg, who stated in an April 14 press conference that the case would not go forward.
On April 15, The New York Times reported that Lewandowski had called Fields the day after the encounter but not heard back from her. Fields denied having received a message or call from Lewandowski and threatened a defamation lawsuit.
Following the news that Lewandowski was no longer with the campaign last Monday, Fields tweeted, “I hear Breitbart is hiring.”
During her interview with Malzberg, Fields said that Lewandowski “probably wasn’t very good at his job” for allegedly being involved in “controversy after controversy” while working for Trump, of whom Fields had attempted to ask a question following a March 8 “Super Tuesday” campaign event. Security footage shows Lewandowski making some kind of contact with Fields while apparently trying to maintain a security perimeter around the candidate made his exit.
On Thursday, CNN announced that the network hired Lewandowski as a political commentator. Trump and Lewandowski appear to have parted ways amicably, and Lewandowski will serve as a New Hampshire delegate to the Republican convention next month.
Referring to Lewandowski, Malzberg contended to Fields that she had “tried to put him in jail,” to which Fields responded, “No, I didn’t try to put him in jail…The reason why I went to the police was that there was a lot of misinformation…there were conspiracies that there were no bruises, that this whole thing was just this big hoax…so the reason why I went to the police was to get an outsider who was objective to look at the information and kind-of get the videos of what happened…and when I spoke to the prosecutor, I told the prosecutor, ‘Look, I don’t want to go to court; all I want is an apology;’ they agreed to that beforehand…”
Malzberg then responded with incredulity that Fields and the prosecutor had a prearranged agreement that the case would not go to court, to which Fields responded that much of what she had just said was already in the public domain.
“Who was the prosecutor who agreed to this?” Malzberg asked, then read the passage from her book. “You pursued this, and many would say that you pursued this for your own PR benefits,” which Fields denied, then said, “I have to run,” abruptly ending the interview. “That’s not from my book. I wrote my book and finished my book a year ago,” she insisted.
On Tuesday afternoon, June 28, The Post & Email contacted Aronberg’s office to request a response to Fields’s claim that the prosecutor agreed in advance that the case would not go to court. We were directed to media representative Mike Edmondson, who said he had not seen the interview. “We wouldn’t have any comment on anything that she says or any interview that she has,” Edmondson told us of Fields.
“Even if you were to see that interview, would you decline to comment?” we asked, to which Edmonson said, “Correct.”
A longer version of the Fields/Malzberg interview is here. Fields has previously worked for ReasonTV, The Daily Caller, PJ Media, Fox News and in May was reportedly hired by The Huffington Post to “cover Trump.”
A search by this writer for columns penned by Fields for HuffPo yielded none.