After multiple interviews with witnesses Wednesday night, the sheriff’s office cited Gianforte for the misdemeanor. Gallatin County Sheriff Brian Gootkin said the incident did not meet the criteria for a felony charge.
Gianforte must appear in Gallatin County Justice Court between now and June 7.
In an emailed statement, Shane Scanlon, spokesman for the Gianforte campaign, gave the following account of the confrontation:
“Tonight, as Greg was giving a separate interview in a private office, The Guardian’s Ben Jacobs entered the office without permission, aggressively shoved a recorder in Greg’s face, and began asking badgering questions. Jacobs was asked to leave. After asking Jacobs to lower the recorder, Jacobs declined,” Scanlon said.
“Greg then attempted to grab the phone that was pushed in his face. Jacobs grabbed Greg’s wrist, and spun away from Greg, pushing them both to the ground. It’s unfortunate that this aggressive behavior from a liberal journalist created this scene at our campaign volunteer BBQ.”
Misdemeanor assault. Only because the extent of the injuries sustained doesn’t meet statutory requirements for felony assault.
Because disagreeing with someone is reason enough to physically attack them. And then make a bogus statement about what happened that only vaguely resembles the facts and people will regurgitate the BS as fact because it fits their political agenda.
Well there is that whole coming in to an office you weren’t invited to, sticking a recorder in ones face and claiming they have ties to Russia and hating on them for wanting to do away with Obama-Care…
People being polite usually don’t get body slammed, people getting in your face, well perhaps.
Yahoo of all people said this… https://ca.news.yahoo.com/democrats-hope-send-trump-republicans-message-montana-vote-060736234.html
A Montana Republican running for the U.S. Congress has been charged with assaulting a reporter hours before polls were to open on Thursday for a special election that could test U.S. President Donald Trump’s political clout.
The incident on Wednesday threatened to roil a tightening race in the Republican-leaning state, where a Democratic political novice aimed to pull off a victory in a contest seen as a bellwether for next year’s U.S. congressional elections.
It was not clear what effect the assault charge against Republican technology executive Greg Gianforte would have on the Montana race, where 37 percent of the 699,207 registered voters had already submitted absentee ballots, according to state election officials.
punching the reporter, she wrote on the Fox News website.
“I’m sick and tired of you guys,” Gianforte can be heard saying in the audio tape. “The last guy who came here did the same thing. Get the hell out of here.” Gianforte was favored in a state where Republicans have held its lone House seat for two decades and where fellow Republican Trump won by more than 20 percentage points in the 2016 presidential election.
He faces Democrat Rob Quist, a banjo-playing folk singer and first-time candidate, to fill the U.S. House of Representatives seat vacated when Trump named Ryan Zinke as secretary of the interior. Quist declined to comment on the incident.
Gianforte’s campaign did not deny Jacobs’ allegation but countered in its own statement that the reporter provoked an altercation by barging into the candidate’s office, shoving a recording device in his face and “asking badgering questions.”
I’m guessing he will win.
As sick as I am of the Media picking our elections and slanting the News by inserting opinion, I’m guessing more Montanans are ready to vote for him today, than there were yesterday.
I have an office, I don’t own my Office, but I do regulate who comes in my Office and what goes on in it.
Other than my immediate supervisor, you knock and stick your head in the door and address your business. Not just anyone is allowed to just come in at thier leisure and begin asking questions that are confrontational and or shove a microphone in my face and demand some anwers.
If you are in my Office and act aggressive, touch me in an unwanted way and or try and start some malarkey, you’ll leave.
You have more than one way to leave, but that is your choice.
None of the witnesses have corroborated Gianforte’s story. All of them have corroborated the journalist’s story. And the county sheriff, who has donated to Gianforte’s campaign, made the decision to charge Gianforte with misdemeanor assault. In the sheriff’s statement, which I have read, the only reason it isn’t felony assault is because the injuries were not severe enough.
Doesn’t matter. All you have to do to get reelected to Montana’s House seat is not f___ up. That’s it. I cannot think of anything meaningful Rehberg, Daines, or Zinke did. Rehberg only lost his seat because he challenged Tester for his Senate seat and lost. Daines got Baucus’s Senate seat when he retired. And Zinke is now SecInt.
There you go, apparently you guys have a good Sheriff there, who won’t be swayed by politics or personal interest. Way it should be. To bad it is so uncommon it is semi-remarkable.
Do you grab them by the throat and throw them to the ground before or after you tell them to leave? Because Gianforte told the reporter to leave after the assault.
Gallatin county has been blessed to have two really good county sheriffs in a row. Brian Gootkin, the current sheriff, is a Republican and served as Undersheriff for Jim Cashell, who was a Democrat and the previous sheriff. I don’t know of anyone who has ever said a negative thing about either.
Also: Senator Steve Daines (our Republican senator) and three major Montana newspapers have withdrawn their support for Gianforte. I’d been hearing that Gianforte’s campaign was in a downward spiral, and that may have contributed to his behavior last night.
If it wasn’t already election day, I’d expect the GOP to pull him from the election. But we’ll see ¯_(ツ)_/¯
