The Scrum: Video Emerges to Suggest WaPo Reporter Ben Terris Misidentifies Lewandowski in Fields Incident
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Jabin Botsford / Washington Post / Getty
by JOEL B. POLLAK11 Mar 2016 2,228
New video of Donald Trump’s press conference Tuesday evening shows that the Washington Post’s account of an altercation involving Breitbart News reporter Michelle Fields could not possibly have happened as Ben Terris reported.In conducting our own due diligence, we have reviewed as much video footage and other evidence as possible, and present it in the interest of transparency.
Contrary to what Donald Trump said Thursday evening after the GOP debate, the incident certainly happened. However, the person who made contact with Fields was likely not Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski.
As Trump campaign spokesperson Katrina Pierson said Thursday on the Fox Business Network, “someone probably did grab her,” i.e. Fields, though Pierson claimed it could not have been Lewandowski.
Audio of the incident, published on Politico, shows Fields asking Terris if the individual who pulled her left arm was, in fact, “Corey.” Terris says it was — an assertion he later repeated in print: “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.”
However, Lewandowski was not the only “man with short-cropped hair and a suit” walking near Trump. And he was walking on the opposite side of Trump from Fields, and Terris.
A photograph by Washington Post photographer Jabin Botsford, Terris’s colleague, released by ABC News World News Tonight, and taken seconds before the altercation took place, shows two men with short-cropped hair.
One, to Trump’s left, is Lewandowski. The other, behind Trump and to his right, is a security official, who resembles Lewandowski and is slightly taller.
ABC News also showed video footage, but cut away before the altercation.
In fact, a review of live news feeds — CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, and C-SPAN — reveals that all had their cameras focused on Trump at the time. All cut away before the incident — in CNN’s case, mere seconds before — but all could have recorded the altercation, and presumably did.
In addition, video footage of the event has been released by reporter Joshua Chavers of West Palm Beach NBC affiliate WPTV, who was streaming video live on WPTV’s Facebook page.
In the WPTV video, at 15:41, Terris can be seen at left, in checked shirt and backpack.
Fields later appears to his left at 16:01, which is also when Trump finishes an interview ( apparently with CNN’s Sara Murray) and begins to move. The same moment is capturedin a brief four-second video by Kristinn Taylor of Gateway Pundit. In that video, as well as in the WPTV video, as Trump moves, Lewandowski is clearly visible on Trump’s left-hand side.
Fields can be seen again at 16:08, at Trump’s right, apparently at about the same moment when the ABC News photograph was taken.
The altercation itself is not shown, but Fields quickly disappears from view, as if pulled back. At 16:18, Trump appears in the frame, holding a book and asking, “Whose book is this?” — which he also is heard saying in the audio published by Politico, right before Fields and Terris discuss what happened. He seems unaware of any altercation.
At 16:21, the security official appears on Trump’s right — and extends his arm to move a young man aside.
At 16:31, Lewandowski and the security official appear in the frame together again — Lewandowski at left and the security official, with earpiece, on the right. Both have “short-cropped hair,” in Terris’s terms.
Fields was indeed hurt in the altercation, and published a photograph of her bruises. Yet the available evidence from WPTV and ABC suggests that it was unlikely that Lewandowski was the person who caused her injuries.
Given the similarity in appearance between Lewandowski and the security official, and given the fact that Lewandowski was walking on the other side of Trump from where Fields was at the time, the possibility of mistaken identity cannot be ruled out. Indeed, given Lewandowski’s adamant denials (coupled with statements inappropriately impugning Fields’s character), it is the likeliest explanation.
In addition, the injury may have been accidental, owing simply to the chaos of the press scrum. A video filmed by a local CBS reporter earlier in the evening shows Fields standing near Trump and the same security official, with no concern or alarm on the part of Trump campaign staff.
Fields relied in good faith on Terris’s confirmation, and later assertions, that the person who touched her was Lewandowski. But he cited no other source to prove his claim, neither at the time nor in the Washington Post. |
