Can You Shoot Journos If You Don't Like What They Say?
A Montana Republican party official said she “would have shot” a reporter from the U.K’s The Guardian newspaper assaulted by Congressman Greg Gianforte.
“If that kid had done to me what he did to Greg, I would have shot him,” Karen Marshall, vice-president of programs for Gallatin County Republican Women told the Voice of Montana radio program on Thursday.
Reporter Ben Jacobs approached Gianforte in a private room where he was about to give a television interview the day before he was elected to Congress in May.
Gianforte slammed Jacobs to the floor, breaking his glasses, and punched him several times. He pleaded guilty to assault, apologized to Jacobs and donated $50,000 to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). He has not yet made good on a promise to sit down for an on-the-record interview with Jacobs.
Gianforte had been running in the special election to fill the seat filled by Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke.
In an interview last week, Marshall defended Gianforte, describing the circumstances which she alleged led to the attack.
"That kid came on private property, came into a private building and went into a very private room that I would not even have gone into," she said on local radio. "It was a setup. A complete setup. He just pushed a little too hard."
The attack took place in a private room at a public event which several reporters were invited to, after Jacobs asked Gianforte a question about healthcare.
Gianforte’s team distanced itself from Marshall’s comments.
"Greg disagrees with those remarks, repudiates them and remains focused on being a strong voice for Montana in Washington," Gianforte spokesman Travis Hall told the Independent Record on Friday.
Marshalls’ comments come with amid warnings of a growing climate of hostililty towards to press in the U.S.
President Trump regularly lambasts news organisations which publish critical coverage as “fake news,” and described the press in February as the "enemy of the American people."
In August, the Committee to Protect Journalists and the Freedom of the Press Foundation joined 20 groups to log threats to press freedom in the U.S.
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