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Trump: Breitbart Reporter Michelle Fields 'Made Up' Alleged Lewandowski Assault

Breitbart has called on the Trump campaign to apologize and said it stands by Michelle Fields.
Image: Republican Presidential Candidates Debate In Miami Area
Donald Trump speaks to the media after Thursday night's debate. Joe Raedle / Getty Images

Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump accused Breitbart reporter Michelle Fields of fabricating her accusation that his campaign manager grabbed her hard enough to leave a bruise during a campaign event.

"Perhaps she made the story up. I think that's what happened," Trump told reporters after Thursday night's GOP debate in Miami of Tuesday night's alleged incident.

In a later statement issued Friday morning, the Trump campaign said the accusation is "entirely false" and that the staff had "no knowledge of said situation."

The Jupiter Police Department confirmed to NBC News on Friday that a police report about the incident has been filed and that an investigation is ongoing. The Independent Review Journal reported that the report was filed by Fields, who has accused Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski of grabbing her arm aggressively as she attempted to question the candidate.

Video of the moment, which another journalist — the Washington Post's Ben Terris — confirmed to NBC News was the time of the alleged incident, shows a partial view of Fields approaching Trump. Her progress stops, but the video does not clearly establish whether Lewandowski or another person made physical contact with her.

Breitbart also published images questioning whether Terris misidentified Lewandowski as the person who may have physically halted Fields' progress.

Fields wrote an account of the incident. Politico published an audio transcript that purportedly captures the interaction and moments immediately afterward when Terris claims it was Lewandowski who committed the alleged assault.

The Trump campaign manager attacked Fields in a series of tweets, calling her an "attention" seeker — which prompted the journalist to tweet a picture of her bruised arm.

Lewandowski later continued to tweet about Fields, calling her an "attention seeker" and questioning her journalistic integrity.

Trump's campaign spokeswoman Hope Hicks also cast aspersions on Fields' reporting, saying in a statement that the Breitbart reporter had "never met" Lewandowski.

After that statement, Breitbart said it was "disappointed" in the campaign's response and "in particular their effort to demean" Fields' previous reporting.

"We stand behind her reporting, her techniques, and call again on Corey Lewandowski to apologize,” the conservative news site's CEO Larry Solov said in a statement.

While the Trump campaign publicly slammed the allegations, a source with knowledge of the campaign says they came as no surprise.

"Corey has always had an extremely aggressive and contentious relationship with the media," the source said. "We've known his irrational anger could be a liability but we've crossed our fingers that something over the top like this would not happen."

The Fields incident came a week after a Time magazine photographer was thrown to the floor by a Secret Service agent at another Trump rally.