Updated 3:07 p.m. ET
Donald Trump’s campaign spokeswoman Hope Hicks responded Thursday to allegations from a Breitbart reporter that Trump’s campaign manager Corey Lewandowski forcibly yanked her by the arm after a press conference in Florida.
“The accusation, which as only been made in the media and never addressed directly with the campaign, is entirely false,” Hicks said in a statement to ABC News.
“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,” Hicks said in the statement.
Hicks’ statement conflicts with a report from The Washington Post’s Ben Terris, who initially identified Lewandowski to Michelle Fields, the Breitbart News reporter involved.
From Terris’ account of the night:
When Donald Trump descended into the crowd after speaking Tuesday night, the instinct to defend kicked in.
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.
“I’m just a little spooked,” she said, a tear streaming down her face. “No one has grabbed me like that before.”
She took my arm and squeezed it hard. “I don’t even want to do it as hard as he did,” she said, “because it would hurt.”
Breitbart News CEO Larry Solov said in a statement Wednesday that Lewandowski owed Fields “an immediate apology” if it was indeed Lewandowski who grabbed her.
“What Michelle has told us directly is that someone ‘grabbed her arm’ and while she did not see who it was, Ben Terris of the Washington Post told her that it was Corey Lewandowski,” he said in the statement.
Hicks also said in the statement that “this individual” making the allegation—she did not name Fields—never met Lewandowski. She added staffers “would never do anything to harm another individual.”
Hicks said the individual should have addressed her concerns with the campaign “first and not via twitter (sic).”
“This person claims she does not want to part of the news, and only report it, however if that was the case, any concerns, however unfounded they may be, should have been voiced directly first and not via twitter (sic), especially since no other outlet or reporter witnessed or questioned anything that transpired that evening,” she said in the statement to ABC.
“We leave to others whether this 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,” the statement read.
After the statement was circulated, Fields tweeted a photo of the bruise she says she sustained in the run-in with Lewandowski.
I guess these just magically appeared on me @CLewandowski_ @realDonaldTrump. So weird. pic.twitter.com/oD8c4D7tw3
— Michelle Fields (@MichelleFields) March 10, 2016
Fields’ boyfriend, Daily Caller editor Jamie Weinstein, had tweeted about the incident Tuesday night. After Hicks’ statement, he tweeted out a picture of Fields at the Occupy Wall Street protests in her defense:
Michelle getting pushed down by police during the Occupy Wall Street protests. Trump campaign serial liars pic.twitter.com/oNptBzNkC9
— Jamie Weinstein (@Jamie_Weinstein) March 10, 2016
Lewandowski then tweeted two stories involving Fields from the Daily Caller and conservative journalist Charles C. Johnson’s website GotNews.com, labelling her an “attention seeker”:
Daily Caller reporter assaulted by NYPD during ‘Occupy’ protests — professional reporting or attention seeking? https://t.co/FqOQQMvNcy
— Corey Lewandowski (@CLewandowski_) March 10, 2016
Michelle Fields is an attention seeker who once claimed Allen West groped her but later went silent. https://t.co/J86Ej42eYx
— Corey Lewandowski (@CLewandowski_) March 10, 2016
