President Donald Trump’s adviser Kellyanne Conway has once again come under fire for her “alternative facts,” raising significant questions about her credibility.
In an interview with MSNBC’s Chris Matthews, Conway referred to the “Bowling Green massacre” in defense of Trump’s Muslim travel ban.
“I bet there was very little coverage, I bet it’s brand new information to people, that President Obama had a six-month ban on the Iraqi refugee program after two Iraqis came here to this country, were radicalized, and they were the masterminds behind the Bowling Green massacre,” Conway said. “But most people don’t know that because it didn’t get covered.”
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In 2011 two Iraqi refugees living in Bowling Green, Ky., were arrested for trying to send money and weapons to Iraq for al-Qaeda “for the purpose of killing U.S. soldiers,” the Justice Department reported in January 2013. Both men were sent to federal prison and never carried out an attack in the U.S. Assistant Attorney General for National Security Lisa Monaco at the time said the incident ended with a “successful outcome.”
Bowling Green has never experienced a terror attack. The city of Bowling Green released a statement after Conway’s interview confirming that there was no attack on the city. Additionally, Obama never implemented a ban on Iraqi refugees.
“I misspoke one word,” Conway later said on Fox News in defense of the MSNBC interview. “The corrections in the newspapers that are attacking me are three paragraphs long every day.”
But Conway’s defense that she “misspoke one word” does not hold up because she has told this lie before — at least twice.
Just days before the MSNBC interview Conway referred to the “Bowling Green massacre” in a phone interview with Cosmo. The publication reported:
“But in an interview with Cosmopolitan.com conducted by phone days earlier, on Sunday, Jan. 29, Conway used the same phrasing, claiming that President Barack Obama called for a temporary ‘ban on Iraqi refugees’ after the ‘Bowling Green massacre.’ (The quotes did not appear in either of two stories recently published on Cosmopolitan.com.)
“‘He did, it’s a fact,’ she said of Obama. ‘Why did he do that? He did that for exactly the same reasons. He did that because two Iraqi nationals came to this country, joined ISIS, traveled back to the Middle East to get trained and refine their terrorism skills, and come back here, and were the masterminds behind the Bowling Green massacre of taking innocent soldiers’ lives away.’”
Conway repeated the same “alternative facts” that same day in an interview with TMZ.
“This is meant to protect our borders and protect us from terrorism,” she said in a taped interview. “The fact is that it was President Obama and the Congress who identified these seven countries, so President Trump is just following on. President Obama suspended the Iraq refugee program for six months in 2011, and no one certainly covered it; I think nobody noticed. He did that because, I assume, because there were two Iraqis who came here, got radicalized, joined ISIS and then were the masterminds behind the Bowling Green attack on our brave soldiers.”
Conway’s blunder has called her credibility into question, with CNN saying it declined to feature her on its “State of the Union” show Sunday. But she did appear on CNN Tuesday night with Jake Tapper, at which time she said she “regretted tremendously” her previous comments. She also said she did not agree with the president’s assertion that CNN is “fake news.”
Daniel Pike, managing editor of the Bowling Green Daily News, responded on Twitter to Conway’s other false claim that the media did not cover the “massacre.”
I was the @bgdailynews‘ city editor when the Bowling Green Massacre didn’t happen.
— Daniel Pike (@DPikeBGDN) February 3, 2017
We couldn’t cover the Bowling Green Massacre because it didn’t happen, but this newspaper has written close to 100 stories about that case.
— Daniel Pike (@DPikeBGDN) February 3, 2017
On February 3 the publication featured Conway on its front page with a one-word headline: “WRONG.”
A fake vigil was also held for the victims of the “Bowling Green massacre,” tweets showed.
Spotted at the Bowling Green subway station. A group chanting: “we all are Bowling Green, never remember, always forget” #BowlingGreen pic.twitter.com/OmgMPZTwfp
— Frank Posillico (@FrankPosillico) February 4, 2017
Amazing: New Yorkers held a mock vigil tonight at Bowling Green subway stop to honor the ‘massacre’ victims.https://t.co/b9x6gRrusc pic.twitter.com/CqobWatlyq
— Matt McDermott (@mattmfm) February 4, 2017
Twitter reacted in other ways, too.
Please retweet if you don’t remember losing a loved one at #BowlingGreenMassacre. #NeverRemember!
— Bowling Green NPS (@NPSBowlingGreen) February 3, 2017
.@KellyannePolls Remember way back to last week when you wanted journalists to be fired for spreading fake news? #BowlingGreenMassacre
— Legion (@USA2043) February 3, 2017
Some users tied in other “alternative facts” from the Trump team.
Breaking News Betsy #devos reveals grizzly bears responsible for #BowlingGreenMassacre #TaketheDeVosPledge pic.twitter.com/88ylct2u3J
— Nana (@NanaKathy22) February 5, 2017
Never Forget the #BowlingGreenMassacre pic.twitter.com/lJFUHzct31
— <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/2.2.1/72x72/1f595.png" alt="