Breitbart Reporter Speaks Out After Alleged Trump Campaign Manager Assault
— -- The Breitbart reporter who alleges she was assaulted by Donald Trump's campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, at a press conference Tuesday night, told ABC News that the Trump campaign's denial of her story has been "hurtful."
"Honestly it's been really hurtful, because obviously no one wants to be touched and violated like that," Michelle Fields told ABC News' Tom Llamas today.
If given the chance to talk directly to the Republican frontrunner, Fields said she'd like him to imagine that he were her father.
"I would just ask him to put himself in my shoes and imagine if I was his daughter," she said.
Fields said there was "no excuse" for the alleged incident.
“The thing is you don’t grab a female reporter or any reporter the way that he grabbed me and you don’t do that and I just feel like there’s no excuse for it,” she said.
The Trump campaign today slammed Fields' account as "entirely false" and suggested it may be part of a "larger pattern of exaggerating incidents" by the Breitbart reporter.
"The accusation, which has only been made in the media and never addressed directly with the campaign, is entirely false," Trump campaign press secretary Hope Hicks said in a statement. "As one of dozens of individuals present as Mr. Trump exited the press conference I did not witness any encounter. In addition to our staff, which had no knowledge of said situation, not a single camera or reporter of more than 100 in attendance captured the alleged incident."
“We leave to others whether this is part of a larger pattern of exaggerating incidents, but on multiple occasions she has become part of the news story as opposed to reporting it. Recall she also claimed to have been beaten by a New York City Police officer with a baton," Hicks went on to say in the statement.
Lewandowski, who declined to be interviewed by ABC News, has since taken to Twitter to suggest that Fields has pursued a series of attention-getting stories, including the incident referenced by Hicks in which Fields claimed that a police officer hit her with a baton.
Video of the incident in which Fields says she was hit, which occurred during an Occupy Wall Street protest in 2011, was shown on FOX Business.
Fields has also taken to Twitter to reply to the Trump campaign's denial of her story, sharing a photo of her bruised arm and pointing to the Washington Post's Ben Terris, who identified Lewandowski as the person who grabbed Fields and corroborated her version of events in a Washington Post story published today.
It wasn’t until after the Trump campaign denied her story as false today that Fields said she decided to show pictures of the bruises left on her arm from Tuesday’s encounter.
“I wasn’t going to show pictures of my bruises or anything until he came out and basically called me a liar,” she said
