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16 Powerful Conservative Women Speak Out Against Trump's 'Smears and Lies'

Although Trump's campaign manager has been charged with battery after grabbing former Breitbart reporter Michelle Fields, the GOP frontrunner refuses to fire him. Yesterday, several influential women in conservative media fired back.
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This week, Donald Trump's campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, was charged with battery after footage emerged of him roughly grabbing former Breitbart reporter Michelle Fields—an incident Trump originally denied, then tried to pass off as a credible threat ("What is in her hand??" he tweeted, along with a close-up photo of Fields' hand, which is holding a small pen). Trump has since said that he won't fire Lewandowski, even if he's convicted of battery at trial.

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In response, 16 influential female conservative journalists have released a statement condemning Lewandowski's behavior and calling on Trump to fire him. "Never in this line of work is it acceptable to respond to reasonable and legitimate questioning with the use of physical force," the statement reads. "The photographs, audio, videos, and witness accounts documenting the treatment of Michelle Fields by Corey Lewandowski, Donald Trump's campaign manager, are inexcusable and unprofessional. Donald Trump should immediately remove Lewandowski from his campaign."

The signatories include several of the most powerful women in conservative media, including Meghan McCain, Townhall.com editor Katie Pavlich, and radio host Dana Loesch.

To American Spectator editor Emily Zanotti, another woman who signed the statement, Trump's response is indicative of a harmful attitude towards women. "Instead of issuing an apology, or even acknowledging their part in the event, the Trump camp continued to change its story, first denying that Michelle had been grabbed and injured, then making attempts to gaslight her into admitting fault, then accusing her of posing a threat to Donald Trump," she said in an email. "The stories keep getting wilder."

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In an emailed statement, Katie Pavlich similarly decried Trump's continued treatment of Fields. "Donald Trump's refusal to hold his campaign manager accountable, in addition to continued attacks and public intimidation of Michelle Fields, which have put her in danger, proves once again he is unfit for the presidency," Pavlich said. (Earlier today, it was reported that Fields had to flee her apartment after Fox and BuzzFeed accidentally published her address.) "We're well beyond the simple battery, which the court will handle. This is about the smears and lies that followed the incident."

According to the New Atlantis' Christine Rosen, another signatory, "there's never been a question" about the way Trump views women. "He might be inconsistent when it comes to his policy stances, but he's been consistent in demeaning, belittling, and inciting harassment of women from day one of his campaign," she said. "His behavior in the wake of the assault charges filed against his campaign manager merely reminds us of that fact."

Zanotti further notes that Trump's response exemplifies his notoriously hostile attitude towards journalists; for her, criticizing his continued protection of Lewandowski is a way of standing up for others in her field. "I think it's important to make it known that, as journalists, we have a right to ask questions of our candidates—even ones we agree with—without fear of retribution, physical or otherwise," she said.

While both Zanotti and Pavlich say most of the responses have been positive, some Trump supporters have come after the women behind the statement in particularly hostile terms: Less than an hour after the letter's release, according to the Huffington Post, Dana Loesch was retweeting sexist attacks, including one tweet that read, simply, "you stupid fucking cunts."

"Being a 'woman on the inside' of the conservative movement is not always easy, and while we don't often encounter overt sexism, Donald Trump seems to have charged up a base of people who have no problem being sexist," Zanotti said. "In my time covering the Trump campaign, I have learned so many new terms for female genitalia, exclusively from his followers who take issue with my stories on social media. The sexism would make a 1950s ad man into a bra-burner, probably."