Corey Lewandowski has been relieved of his post as GOP nominee Donald Trump's campaign manager, according to a statement from campaign spokeswoman Hope Hicks.
From relative obscurity as a director at Koch Brothers advocacy group Americans for Prosperity to the campaign trail, controversy has closely followed Lewandowski, who "had no national campaign experience when Trump, after a brief introduction, hired him on the spot to run his bid," according to the AP.
It would appear Trump's impulse betrayed him, though, as reports dating back as far as August indicate Lewandowski was a dividing force within the campaign.
In a New York magazine profile of the campaign, Lewandowski is alleged to have pushed out Sam Nunberg by leaking to Business Insider a series of racist Facebook posts the longtime Trump aide made pertaining to President Obama and Al Sharpton's daughter.
And today, Bloomberg reported a "schism" between Lewandowski and relatively newly appointed campaign chairman Paul Manafort.
"Corey and Paul get along great,” Trump told Bloomberg Politics earlier this month, adding ominously, “If they’re fighting, I get rid of one or the other or do something.”
In January, the campaign released a purposely misleading ad showing immigrants crossing the Moroccan border with Spanish territory Melilla. The footage was paired with narration claiming it to be "our southern border."
Asked to comment, Lewandowski eloquently told NBC News, "No shit it’s not the Mexican border but that’s what our country is going to look like. This was 1,000 percent on purpose."
In March, Lewandowski was charged with one count of simple battery after grabbing the arm of former-Breitbart reporter Michelle Fields after a news conference at Mar-a-Lago. CCTV footage of the alleged battery released by the Jupiter Police Department shows Lewandowski yanking Fields' arm. The charges were eventually dropped.
Around the time of his battery charge, details of Lewandowski's past record of lewd behavior emerged. According to a BuzzFeed report:
In recent interviews with more than half a dozen sources who have worked with Trump’s top aide, Corey Lewandowski, the strategist was accused of pushing a CNN reporter who tried to ask the candidate a question; physically confronting an aide for a rival campaign in a post-debate spin room; publicly shouting threats over the phone at a restaurant; making sexual comments about female journalists; and calling up women in the campaign press corps late at night to make unwanted romantic advances.
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