Donald Trump only hires the best people, right?
Corey Lewandowski, Donald Trump campaign manager, was charged this morning with misdemeanor battery after allegations of forcefully grabbing a reporter at a Jupiter news conference, town police confirmed this morning.
Following a March 8 conference at Trump National Golf Club, Michelle Fields, a 28-year-old reporter formerly with the online Breitbart News Network, said she was grabbed on the arm by Lewandowski, 41, after she asked Trump a question about affirmative action.
Lewandowski turned himself in to Jupiter police just after 8 a.m., according to a police report.
Surveillance footage captured at Trump National, off Donald Ross Road, corroborates Fields’ claim, the arrest report says.
The police released this surveillance footage:
A statement from Trump’s campaign calls Lewandowski “completely innocent,” saying the campaign manager is “completely confident that he will be exonerated.”
(You may recall Trump saying, “Perhaps she made the story up. I think that’s what happened.”)
Under Florida law, simple battery is a first degree misdemeanor; the state can request a sentence of imprisonment lasting up to one year and a fine that cannot exceed $1,000.