Topic category:  Partisan Politics

Greta van Susteren would not prosecute after seeing the video, but upon returning from vacation, Megyn Kelly resumed her campaign against the Trump campaign with sharply skewed coverage of Michelle Fields' criminal battery complaint against Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski.

A simple battery case was referred by police to prosecutors after Fields filed a criminal complaint that she had been physically assaulted by Lewandowski.

Never mind that Fields had disobeyed Secret Service instructions by approaching Donald Trump after Trump had ended a long press conference and touched him to get his attention.

Video shows that Trump was startled and pulled away, but he did not try to have Fields arrested for criminal battery.

So much for the charge that Trump can't be presidential and gracious.

Lewandowski, protecting his candidate, did touch Fields after she touched Trump, obviously to free Trump from Fields' unwanted attention.

Fields was not only uncontrite, but downright touchy about that.

Fields claimed to have been physically assaulted by Lewandowski and demanded an apology from the Trump campaign.

Initially she claimed not to know who touched her.

Then she claimed it was Lewandowski.

She did not apologize for disobeying the Secret Service or touching Trump.

She didn't get the apology she coveted.

She did get an invitation to appear on Kelly's show and accepted, even though she claimed she did not want to be the news.

Instead of moving on, she doubled down and filed a criminal complaint against Lewandowski.

The search for video showing exactly what had and had not happened began eventually proved fruitful.

Lewandowski had quickly tweeted that he had not touched her and that he had not even met her.

He should have tweeted that he had not assaulted her and advised her that the Secret Service was there to protect Trump from danger and in these times her pushiness was perceivable as potentially dangerous.

There doesn't appear to be a dispute that Lewandowski had not met her before.

It does appear that Lewandowski touched her, as a person protecting his or her candidate would be expected to do, especially since she was carrying what appeared to be a pen.

But Fields claimed that was manhandled, nearly thrown to the ground.

That did not happen.

Breitbart Network News, Fields' employer at the time, did not back her highly embellished story, and so she resigned.

Good for Breitbart.

It turns out that Fields has a history of claiming to have manhandled while trying to report the news.

Unfortunately, Wikipedia does not mention it.

Remember the ugly Occupy Wall Street demonstrations in New York City?

Fields was there for The Daily Caller.

According to Fields, the demonstrators were concerned about her well being and the police were brutes.

From The Daily Caller:

"While covering Occupy Wall Street’s 'Day of Action' Thursday morning, Daily Caller reporter Michelle Fields and videographer Direna Cousins were struck by NYPD officers as police tried to clear Wall Street of protesters.

"'The police officers were beating the protesters with batons, and were also beating the media,' Fields told TheDC. 'They hit Direna and me with batons. They hit other members of the press in order to get them to move out of the street.'

"Both were struck, but neither sustained injuries that required hospitalization.

"Clear indications that Fields and Cousins were members of the press didn’t stop the NYPD beating.

"'Direna had a camera in her hand and I had a microphone, and we were being hit,' she said.

"'When I fell to the ground I said at one point, "I’m just covering this! I’m covering this!" And the officer just said, "Come on, get up, get up," before pulling me up by my jacket."'

"In the crush of the crowd, Fields and Cousins were unable to get out of the street and comply with the NYPD’s orders.

"'The protesters came up to me right away and asked if I needed any medical assistance. They were actually very kind and helpful. It was the police officers who were very aggressive,' Fields added."

Fields surely knows how to become the story.

Has Fields apologized to Trump for grabbing him in her zeal to ask him something?

Apparently not.

Has Kelly asked Fields why not?

If Kelly has, she hasn't reported it.

Has Fields apologized to the Secret Service for disobeying lawful instructions?

Apparently not.

Would the "crush of the crowd" explanation fly as an excuse for Fields grabbing Trump and/or disobeying Secret Service instructions?

No.

Does Kelly care?

Apparently not.

Kelly is obsessed that Lewendowski erroneously denied "touching" Fields and pretending that makes Fields' full story credible, Lewandowski unbelievable and the video irrelevant except insofar as it shows that touching.

As for Fields' simple battery of Trump, Kelly seems unfazed.

Maybe Kelly will make Fields a regular on her show!

Michael J. Gaynor

Biography - Michael J. Gaynor

Michael J. Gaynor has been practicing law in New York since 1973. A former partner at Fulton, Duncombe & Rowe and Gaynor & Bass, he is a solo practitioner admitted to practice in New York state and federal courts and an Association of the Bar of the City of New York member.

Gaynor graduated magna cum laude, with Honors in Social Science, from Hofstra University's New College, and received his J.D. degree from St. John's Law School, where he won the American Jurisprudence Award in Evidence and served as an editor of the Law Review and the St. Thomas More Institute for Legal Research. He wrote on the Pentagon Papers case for the Review and obscenity law for The Catholic Lawyer and edited the Law Review's commentary on significant developments in New York law.

The day after graduating, Gaynor joined the Fulton firm, where he focused on litigation and corporate law. In 1997 Gaynor and Emily Bass formed Gaynor & Bass and then conducted a general legal practice, emphasizing litigation, and represented corporations, individuals and a New York City labor union. Notably, Gaynor & Bass prevailed in the Second Circuit in a seminal copyright infringement case, Tasini v. New York Times, against newspaper and magazine publishers and Lexis-Nexis. The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed, 7 to 2, holding that the copyrights of freelance writers had been infringed when their work was put online without permission or compensation.

Gaynor currently contributes regularly to www.MichNews.com, www.RenewAmerica.com, www.WebCommentary.com, www.PostChronicle.com and www.therealitycheck.org and has contributed to many other websites. He has written extensively on political and religious issues, notably the Terry Schiavo case, the Duke "no rape" case, ACORN and canon law, and appeared as a guest on television and radio. He was acknowledged in Until Proven Innocent, by Stuart Taylor and KC Johnson, and Culture of Corruption, by Michelle Malkin. He appeared on "Your World With Cavuto" to promote an eBay boycott that he initiated and "The World Over With Raymond Arroyo" (EWTN) to discuss the legal implications of the Schiavo case. On October 22, 2008, Gaynor was the first to report that The New York Times had killed an Obama/ACORN expose on which a Times reporter had been working with ACORN whistleblower Anita MonCrief.

Gaynor's email address is gaynormike@aol.com.