Breitbart Reporter Michelle Fields, Who Was Manhandled at Trump Rally, Quits
Image by Screen Grab
By John A. Oswald March 14, 2016
The Breitbart News reporter who accused Donald Trump’s campaign manager of roughing her up has resigned.
Michelle Fields, along with editor-at-large Ben Shapiro, handed in their resignations Sunday night.
Fields has accused the management of the conservative news agency, which was founded by the late Jewish publisher Andrew Breitbart, of casting doubt on her allegations.
“Today I informed the management at Breitbart News of my immediate resignation. I do not believe Breitbart News has adequately stood by me during the events of the past week and because of that I believe it is now best for us to part ways,”
Shapiro agreed, and said Breitbart News chair Steve Bannon has turned the news site into the Trump’s “personal Pravda.”
Breitbart company spokesman Kurt Bardella resigned last week over last Tuesday’s incident at a Florida Trump rally
The runaway Republican frontrunner has denied Fields’ allegations that his campaign boss, Corey Lewandowski violently grabbed her arm and bruised it as she tried to question him.
“This was, in my opinion, made up,” Trump told CNN. ”Perhaps she made the story up. I think that’s what happened.’”
Fields has filed assault charges against Lewandowski, who has called her “delusional.”
Breitbart ran a story questioning whether Fields misidentified who grabbed her.
“Both Lewandowski and Trump maligned Michelle in the most repulsive fashion,” Shapiro said in his resignation,” wrote in his resignation statement, which Buzzfeed posted.
“Meanwhile, Breitbart News not only stood by and did nothing outside of tepidly asking for an apology, they then attempted to abandon Michelle by silencing staff from tweeting or talking about the issue. Finally, in the ultimate indignity, they undermined Michelle completely by running a poorly-evidenced conspiracy theory as their lead story in which Michelle and Terris had somehow misidentified Lewandowski.”
Breitbart management has not commented.
A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.
If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
