T. Article: Republican Candidate For U. S. House in Montana Attacks Guardian Reporter

Mark Skogman     Senior Reporter     Spectrum 360 Media

’17 May 24 Wensday     E. D. T.  23:18     Bozeman, MT  U. S. A.

Today, Wens. 24 May, ’17 Greg Gianforte, Republican and candidate for the U. S. House Of Representatives in Montanta got into a physical confrontation with Guardian Newspaper reporter Ben Jacobs.  This incident happened at a campaign headquarters office volunteer barbeque event in Bozeman, Montana.  A television crew was setting up for an interview in a side room of the office.  Jacobs tried to ask a question of Gianforte regarding the Congressional Budget Office score of the Republican sponsored American Health Care Act.  The C. B. O. report was just released today and the Special Election for the seat in the U. S House Of Reresentatives from Montana is tomorrow.  Gianforte was in the room, apparently waiting to be interviewed.  Jacobs entered to ask Gianforte his questions regarding the C. B. O. report prior to the television interview starting, stating that this was his only opportunity to do this that day.  Gianforte had an altercation with the Guardian reporter.  Reportedly, he broke the reporter’s glasses and “body slammed” the reporter to the floor, yelling “Get the hell out of here!”  Jacobs had his telephone audio recorder recording and recorded the incident in full.

After the incident, Ben Jacobs called his editor and then local police.  Police, an ambulance and the local Fire Department were dispatched to the site.  He was then taken to the hospital in the ambulance and treated for an injured elbow with an x- ray.  The audio he recorded was posted on the Guardian website.  Find the audio here: https://youtu.be/fhoH4v8xYlU  The Gallatin County Sheriff’s Office is investigating.

Campaign spokesman Shane Scanlon released a statement from the campaign blaming the incident entirely on the reporter.  The Guardian Newspaper website released an article on the incident, unequivocally describing the incident as an assault on Jacobs.  Find the article here: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/24/greg-gianforte-bodyslams-reporter-ben-jacobs-montana

Later, Ben Jacobs called in to the MSNBC primetime news program “All In” and was interviewed by Chris Hayes.  He described the incident and played the entire audio segment.  BuzzFeed News reporter Alexis Levinson was directly outside the room and could see into the room where the altercation took place.  She witnessed the incident with an obstructed view and was also interviewed by Chris Hayes, stating she could hear the body slam as a “loud crash”.  Tom Ricks with Foreign Policy magazine condemned the incident on air.  A fair hearing of the Jacobs audio recording supports his version of events and contradicts the Gianforte version of events.  Later reporting on MSNBC quoted a Fox News reporter who was a direct witness to the assault and who identified Gianforte as the attacker.  The reporter, Alicia Arcana, also stated that Gianforte punched Jacobs, grabbed him by the neck, threw him down and then apologized for the assault.  A press conference by the Gallatin County Sheriff’s Office was inconclusive on what happened during the incident and have not made any arrests to this time.  There is ongoing television news coverage of this breaking story.

The Special Election on Thurs. 25 May, ’17 is being conducted to elect a new U. S. Representative to replace Ryan Zinke, who was appointed as Secretary Of The Interior by the Trump Administration.  Rob Quist is the Democrat candidate in the election and has declined comment to this time.  Will this affect the election?  The next 24 hours will tell that story!

https://gregformontana.com     https://www.facebook.com/pg/GregForMontana     @gianforte

https://robquist.org/     https://www.facebook.com/robquistformontana/     @RobQuistforMT

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/     http://www.msnbc.com     http://www.foxnews.com

#Greg Gianforte     #Ben Jacobs     #Bozeman MT     #Rob Quist

Copyright:  Copyright (C) 2017 Mark A. Skogman  All rights reserved.

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