Donald Trump campaign manager charged with misdemeanor battery against reporter

Donald Trump's presidential campaign manager was arrested and charged with misdemeanor battery in Florida on Tuesday in an incident involving a reporter, the latest chapter in a raucous US race marked by threats, insults and physical confrontations.

Police in Jupiter, Florida, charged Corey Lewandowski, 42, with intentionally grabbing and bruising the arm of Michelle Fields, then a reporter for the conservative news outlet Breitbart, when she tried to question Trump at a campaign event on March 8. 

Republican front-runner Trump repeatedly defended Lewandowski throughout a day of campaigning in Wisconsin. He also rescinded a previous pledge to support the Republican presidential nominee if it is not him. "No, not anymore," he said when asked if he would honour his previous pledge.

At a CNN town hall on Tuesday night, Trump said he would remain loyal to his campaign manager and that Lewandowski would remain on the job even though it might be more convenient on behalf of his campaign to "terminate this man, ruin his life, ruin his family ... ruin his whole everything and say: 'You're fired.'"

Trump also questioned Fields' original description of the incident in which she said she was almost yanked to the ground by Lewandowski. He wondered aloud if she had posed a threat to him because she approached him with an ink pen. "She had a pen in her hand that could've been a knife," Trump said.

Why is this reporter touching me as I leave news conference? What is in her hand?? pic.twitter.com/HQB8dl0fhn

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 29, 2016

Police released a video of the incident showing Fields walking alongside Trump and trying to question him. Lewandowski is seen grabbing her arm and pulling her backward. Previous videos of the incident had been obscured by people in the crowd. At the time, Lewandowski called Fields "delusional" and said he never touched her.

Campaign rallies for Trump, the billionaire businessman who leads the race to become the Republican candidate in the November 8 presidential election, are tumultuous at times and have been marked by occasional clashes between protesters and supporters or security personnel.

His pugnacious campaign style, which includes personal insults directed at rivals and scathing criticism of protesters, has been criticised for encouraging physical altercations at his rallies. Trump leads rivals Ted Cruz, a US senator from Texas, and Ohio Governor John Kasich in opinion polls and in the number of delegates to the nominating convention, despite a concerted effort to stop him by a Republican establishment worried he will lead the party to defeat in November. 

Cruz said Trump "of course" should ask for Lewandowski's resignation. "Look, it shouldn't be complicated that members of the campaign staff shouldn't be physically assaulting the press," Cruz said on the CNN town hall. Kasich said he considered such behaviour "totally and completely" inappropriate. "If it was me, if I was in this circumstance, I would take some sort of action, either suspension or firing," Kasich told reporters in Wisconsin.

WALKER ENDORSES CRUZ

Cruz picked up the endorsement on Tuesday of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker ahead of the state's primary next week. Walker, who dropped out of the presidential race in 2015, called Cruz a principled constitutional conservative. "I'm all in," Walker said in an interview on WTMJ radio in Milwaukee, adding he was not endorsing Cruz in an attempt to stop Trump.

"I just fundamentally believe if you look at the facts, if you look at the numbers, that Ted Cruz is in the best position by far to both win the nomination of the Republican Party and to then go on and defeat Hillary Clinton in the fall this year," Walker said, referring to the Democratic front-runner.

Walker joins a number of other more establishment Republicans who have backed Cruz as an alternative to Trump, who has racked up a strong delegate lead but alienated many party leaders with his harsh views on illegal immigration, Muslims and women.

On his plane, Trump said Fields had been pursuing him after a news conference and Lewandowski was trying to "get her off me." He questioned whether Lewandowski had given Fields the bruise on her arm. "How do you know those bruises weren't there before?" he asked reporters in Wisconsin.

Republican strategist Katie Packer, who runs an anti-Trump Super PAC, said the incident and the charges against Lewandowski reflected the candidate's lack of respect toward women. "He doesn't have the kind of values and the kind of temperament that we should expect from someone who wants to be commander in chief," she said.

Lewandowski was charged with simple battery, defined under Florida law as intentionally touching or striking a person against their will. For a first offence, it is a misdemeanor in the first degree, which carries a maximum sentence of one year in prison or a fine of $1,000. A court date was set for May 4, according to the police report. Jupiter police said Lewandowski turned himself in, and he was issued a notice requiring him to appear in court and then released. He was not booked into the jail.

Lewandowski's lawyer, Scott Richardson of West Palm Beach, Florida, declined to comment on whether his client would step down as campaign manager. Lewandowski will also be represented by Kendall Coffey, a Miami lawyer, the campaign said. Fields resigned from Breitbart less than a week after the incident, citing what she said was the online news outlet's refusal to stand behind her amid the allegations.