The Republican candidate in Montana’s special congressional election allegedly body slammed a reporter and broke his glasses on Wednesday night, according to an audio recording of the event and eyewitness accounts.
The altercation, which took place at Greg Gianforte’s campaign headquarters in Bozeman, Montana, took place the night before the state’s special election.
The Gallatin County Sheriff’s Office said it was conducting an ongoing investigation into “allegations of an assault involving Greg Gianforte,” but didn’t provide further details.
Ben Jacobs, a political reporter for the Guardian, said he had been asking Gianforte about the Republican healthcare plan when the candidate “body slammed” him and began shouting, “Get the hell out of here.”
“He took me to the ground,” Jacobs told his paper. “This is the strangest thing that has ever happened to me in reporting on politics.”
The audio file provided by Jacobs backs up his account of the incident.
However, Gianforte’s campaign blamed the altercation on Jacobs’ “aggressive behavior,” and offered a version of events at odds with the audio recording.
“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,” the campaign said. “Jacobs was asked to leave. After asking Jacobs to lower the recorder, Jacobs declined. 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.”
Jacobs was transferred to the Bozeman Health Deaconess Hospital where he underwent x-rays on his elbow, according to his account of the story.
Gianforte, an engineer and businessman, is running against Democratic candidate Rob Quist for the state’s lone congressional seat, which was vacated by Republican Ryan Zinke upon his appointment to United States Secretary of the Interior.
Late last month, Jacobs reported that Gianforte had nearly $250,000 in shares in two index funds that had investments in Russian companies which were under U.S. sanctions.