Ben Shapiro, Michelle Fields, Others Quit Breitbart Over Handling of Trump Event Assault

In response, Breitbart attacks Shapiro, using pseudonym of the writer's father.

By Al Perrotta Published on March 14, 2016

Michelle Fields, the Breitbart reporter allegedly assaulted by Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski last week, resigned last night over the pro-Trump website’s handling of the story. Also leaving, and not quietly, is Breitbart editor-at-large Ben Shapiro.

Field’s statement Sunday night was brief and to the point: “Today I informed the management at Breitbart News of my immediate resignation,” Fields said. “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.”

Fields would later tell the Independent Journal, “I can’t stand with an organization that won’t stand by me. The bruises on my arm will heal but I cannot be silent about the smears and lies perpetrated against me by the Trump campaign.”

Rather than apologize for the incident, Trump suggested it never happened and Lewandowski and the Trump campaign said Fields was an “attention-seeker” prone to making false allegations. Breitbart, which has been unabashed in its support of Trump, initially, if weakly, supported Fields. However, the website jumped fully on Team Trump with tweets attacking Fields and her story, an internal order that no reporter defend her, and an article claiming Lewandowski was “misidentified.”

The treatment of Fields was the last straw for Ben Shapiro. In a statement released to Buzzfeed, Shapiro charged Breitbart News with betraying the life mission of its late founder Andrew Breitbart:

Andrew built his life and his career on one mission: fight the bullies. But Andrew’s life mission has been betrayed. Indeed, Breitbart News, under the chairmanship of Steve Bannon, has put a stake through the heart of Andrew’s legacy. 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. I spoke with Michelle the night after the incident. She told me her story. That story was backed by audiotape, eyewitness testimony from The Washington Post’s Ben Terris, physical bruises, and video tape.

Both Lewandowski and Trump maligned Michelle in the most repulsive fashion. 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.

Shapiro says the situation is “disgusting” and “truly breaks my heart.” “Breitbart News has become precisely the reverse of what Andrew would have wanted.”

Breitbart News responded to Shapiro’s statement with a snarky statement of its own that seemed to prove his point. It was soon pulled down, but not before being saved by a screenshot:

Breitbart Article Screenshot

 

Editor-at-large Joel Pollack has apologized.  “The article was written by me as part of an effort to make light of a significant company event, and was published as a result of a misunderstanding without going through the normal editorial channels,” Pollack wrote. “I apologize to Michelle Fields, my friend Ben Shapiro, and to everyone concerned.”

But there’s an ominous twist to the story: The article was published under the name “William Bigelow.” As Politico is reporting, that is the pseudonym of Shapiro’s father, writer David Shapiro. According to Ben Shapiro, his father used the pseudonym on the site to protect his safety in the wake of the many death threats that his son received.

Breitbart put this under his byline because they knew I’d have to out him,” Shapiro told Politico. “The fact they would use my father’s pseudonym in order to attack me just exposes how despicable they are.” The elder Shapiro has also resigned from the new website.

Update: At noon today, Breitbart National Security Correspondent Jordan Schatchtel and Editor Jarrett Stepman also resigned, both citing the news site becoming “propaganda” for the Trump campaign. Here are their statements:

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Also, Marco Rubio called Lewandowski’s alleged assault on Fields, “one more example of what’s happening” at Trump events. “If my campaign manager had done that, my campaign would be over” he told radio host Mike Gallagher, “He would have had to resign, and my campaign would be over. I would have to quit that very day.”

 

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