Michelle Fields, the reporter who alleged that Donald Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski grabbed her arm at a press conference last week, resigned from Breitbart News on Sunday, Buzzfeed News reported early Monday morning.
“Today I informed the management at Breitbart News of my immediate resignation,” Fields said in a Sunday night statement to BuzzFeed News. “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.”
Ben Shapiro, an editor-at-large for Breitbart who called for Lewandowski to be fired, also resigned from Breitbart, according to Buzzfeed News. In his statement, Shapiro slammed Breitbart and its chairman, Steve Bannon, for not offering enough support to Fields and her account of the incident.
“In my opinion, Steve Bannon is a bully, and has sold out Andrew’s mission in order to back another bully, Donald Trump; he has shaped the company into Trump’s personal Pravda, to the extent that he abandoned and undercut his own reporter, Breitbart News’ Michelle Fields, in order to protect Trump’s bully campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, who allegedly assaulted Michelle,” Shapiro said in the statement.
“Both Lewandowski and Trump maligned Michelle in the most repulsive fashion,” Shapiro continued. “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 published a report last week casting doubt on Fields’ claim that it was Lewandowski who grabbed Fields.
Fields said last week that Lewandowski grabbed her arm, almost causing her to fall down, as she attempted to ask Trump a question following a press conference. A Washington Post reporter says he witnessed the incident. The Trump campaign has denied that Lewandowski grabbed Fields, and Lewandowski has suggested that Fields was just seeking attention.
Since the initial accusations against Lewandowski were reported last week, a video that appears to show Lewandowski grabbing Fields’ arm has emerged. And an audio recording published last week appears to back up Fields’ account of the incident.
