Trump: Breitbart reporter Michelle Fields 'made up' alleged Lewandowski assault

Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump accused a Breitbart reporter of fabricating her accusation that his campaign manager grabbed her hard enough to leave a bruise during a campaign event.

Trump told reporters after Thursday night's GOP debate in Miami that nothing happened.

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"Perhaps she made the story up. I think that's what happened," he said of Tuesday night's alleged incident.

"I believe I was in the middle of a lot of Secret Service agents, and they all said that they never saw anything," Trump said. "And these are very honorable guys, they're fantastic people, and there were a lot of them and nobody saw anything, and to the best of my knowledge there's no pictures."

Breitbart's Michelle Fields accused Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski of grabbing her arm and "aggressively" yanking her aside after she questioned the candidate about affirmative action following an event in Florida.

Fields wrote an account of the incident -- which a Washington Post journalist reportedly witnessed. Politico published an audio transcript that purportedly captures the interaction and moments immediately afterward when the Washington Post reporter claims it was Lewandowski who committed the alleged assault.

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The Trump campaign manager attacked Fields in a series of tweets, calling her an "attention" seeker -- which prompted the journalist to tweet a picture of her bruised arm.

Lewandowski later continued to tweet about Fields, calling her an "attention seeker" and questioning her journalistic integrity.

Trump's campaign spokeswoman Hope Hick also cast aspersions on Fields' reporting, saying in a statement that the Breitbart reporter had "never met" Lewandowski.

Breitbart said it was "disappointed" in the campaign's response and "in particular their effort to demean" Fields' previous reporting.

"We stand behind her reporting, her techniques, and call again on Corey Lewandowski to apologize," the conservative news site's CEO Larry Solov said in a statement.

While the Trump campaign publicly slammed the allegations, a source with knowledge of the campaign says they came as no surprise.

"Corey has always had an extremely aggressive and contentious relationship with the media," the source said. "We've known his irrational anger could be a liability but we've crossed our fingers that something over the top like this would not happen."

The Fields incident came a week after a Time magazine photographer was thrown to the floor by a Secret Service agent at another Trump rally.

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