So, Michelle Fields wasn’t lying.
Of course.
I wasn’t conspiring, utilizing both chemtrails and my vaunted Bilderberg connections (as well as my magical JOOOOOOO!!!! powers), to somehow take down the Trump campaign by falsifying a simple battery accusation.
Of course.
Here’s the tape released by the Jupiter Police Department from Trump’s own facility at Mar-a-Lago – the tape that his own people suggested didn’t exist in order to slander Michelle as an attention whore.
Michelle alleged the following in her original report at Breitbart:
Trump acknowledged the question, but before he could answer I was jolted backwards. Someone had grabbed me tightly by the arm and yanked me down. I almost fell to the ground, but was able to maintain my balance. Nonetheless, I was shaken. The Washington Post’s Ben Terris immediately remarked that it was Trump’s campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, who aggressively tried to pull me to the ground. I quickly turned around and saw Lewandowski and Trump exiting the building together. No apology. No explanation for why he did this.
Michelle tweeted this picture of her bruises:
I guess these just magically appeared on me @CLewandowski_ @realDonaldTrump. So weird. pic.twitter.com/oD8c4D7tw3
— Michelle Fields (@MichelleFields) March 10, 2016
Here was Ben Terris’ eyewitness account as reported in The Washington Post:
As security parted the masses to give him passage out of the chandelier-lit ballroom, Michelle Fields, a young reporter for Trump-friendly Breitbart News, pressed forward to ask the GOP front-runner a question. I watched as a man with short-cropped hair and a suit grabbed her arm and yanked her out of the way. He was Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s 41-year-old campaign manager. Fields stumbled. Finger-shaped bruises formed on her arm.
Nobody alleged a crowbar beat-down. Nobody alleged an MMA-style ground and pound. Michelle alleged a grab, a yank, and a bruise. So did Terris. All true. All backed by video evidence, audio evidence, and witness accounts. A quick apology would have fixed this. Instead, the Trump campaign did what they do: they responded like lying thugs.
Here are seven lessons to learn from the Michelle Fields incident.
The Trump Campaign Is Filled With Liars. Here is Lewandowski’s initial response to the Fields allegation:
@MichelleFields you are totally delusional. I never touched you. As a matter of fact, I have never even met you.
— Corey Lewandowski (@CLewandowski_) March 11, 2016
He then tweeted, “professional reporting or attention seeking?” This became the playbook for the Trump campaign, including Katrina Pierson, who then appeared on national television to say that Lewandowski had nothing to do with it.
The Lying Comes Straight From The Top. Upon being apprised of Fields’ accusation, here was Trump’s response:
VIDEO: Trump to @DylanByers on @MichelleFields incident. “I think she made it up.” pic.twitter.com/VUB5LnbrTM
— Ryan Nobles (@ryanobles) March 11, 2016
“Nobody saw it happened. Nobody complained….I think [she] made it up.”
Except she didn’t. Trump knew that, of course, as did Lewandowski. But none of that mattered. Lewandowski, for being a good soldier in defense of Trump, received the high honor of standing alongside The Great Man himself after Trump’s super Tuesday victories, and receiving the rhetorical medal of honor from Trump: “
So, has Trump changed his tune now that the new video is out and the Jupiter Police are pressing charges?
Wow, Corey Lewandowski, my campaign manager and a very decent man, was just charged with assaulting a reporter. Look at tapes-nothing there!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 29, 2016
Why aren’t people looking at this reporters earliest statement as to what happened, that is before she found out the episode was on tape?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 29, 2016
Of course not. He just kept lying about Michelle Fields, who hasn’t changed one phrase of her story from the first moment. As Michelle tweeted:
Because my story never changed. Seriously, just stop lying. https://t.co/1fz9cBHOuT
— Michelle Fields (@MichelleFields) March 29, 2016
Because Trump is a garbage heap of a human being.
The Trump Campaign Lies Audaciously. The Trump campaign’s original response to the Fields allegation was this statement from Hope Hicks:
The accusation, which has only been made in the media and never addressed directly with the campaign, is entirely false….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.
Now it’s all on tape. And originally, the incident was reported by Ben Terris of the Washington Post. But truth means nothing to these people. Documenting even a single day worth of the Trump campaign’s lies would fill a decent-sized book.
The Trump Campaign Is Thuggish. In response to the release of the police tape today, Katrina Pierson, spokesperson for the Trump campaign, said that Lewandowski had Trump’s “total confidence” and that he would “absolutely” remain in his role. Pierson added that Lewandowski will remain on the Trump campaign even if convicted. No shock there. She also said that perhaps the press should pay the price for Lewandowski’s problems: “Perhaps campaigns – particularly presidential campaigns – should begin to change the rules of the type of access the press gets from now on.”
Trump’s comments about roughing people up have lit up talk show caller boards for months; no need to recap them here. But suffice it to say that the Trump campaign has always been quite tolerant of thuggish behavior in defense of The Donald, to the point of The Donald himself pledging legal defense for those who assault protesters.
The Trump Campaign Has a Peculiar Adoration For Smearing Women. The attack on Michelle Fields as an attention whore is no exception for the Trump campaign. Just last week, Trump supporter Adriana Cohen appeared on CNN and accused political writer Amanda Carpenter of having an affair with Ted Cruz. Now a Trump aide has done the same via Twitter. Trump quasi-surrogate Roger Stone called the National Enquirer story about Cruz’s affairs true, implicating Pierson herself in the process, since she was outed in the story. Trump himself slammed Heidi Cruz as ugly because he didn’t like that Liz Mair ran an ad showing his wife naked from an old GQ photo shoot. Trump supporters have accused virtually every powerful anti-Trump conservative woman of some nefarious sexual activity with a rival candidate. And of course Trump himself has attacked prominent media females including Dana Perino and most egregiously Megyn Kelly (“blood coming out of her wherever”). Some of those attacks are purely political and within normal boundaries. But many of them are far more personal, obviously. This is a pattern, now, not merely a few isolated events.
The Media Play Along For Their Own Benefit. After Michelle Fields told her story, here are the number of Sunday show hosts who asked Trump about it: zero. That’s leaving aside media outlets that downplayed or pretended Michelle lied in the first place.
Trump Supporters Will Never Accept Reality. So, now that the tape is out, will Trump supporters at least acknowledge that Michelle Fields wasn’t lying? Of course not! Their argument has mutated, like a rhetorical Doomsday, from “she was never touched” to “there’s no tape” to “she hasn’t filed a police report” to “she shouldn’t have filed a police report” to “she had it coming.” Of course, these same people believe that Trump is winning in all the polls (HINT: FALSE).
So, no big shock here: not much will change for Trump supporters. But for everyone else, if it wasn’t already clear, decency should be a serious barrier to backing Donald Trump and his campaign of lying thuggery.