White House counselor Kellyanne Conway criticized the media Thursday night for not covering a terrorist attack, but the press fired back Friday with reports that attack she mentioned never happened.
Speaking on MSNBC, Conway was defending President Trump’s executive order that paused refugee processing and temporarily halted immigration from seven countries, by comparing it to actions by President Obama. She said two Iraqi refugees came to the United States and were the “masterminds behind the Bowling Green massacre,” which prompted Obama to impose a similar temporary ban.
“I bet it’s brand new information to people that President Obama had a 6-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. It didn’t get covered,” Conway said on MSNBC.
CNN, who has been a punching bag for the nascent Trump administration, fact checked Conway and said there was no such attack.
CNN said Conway appeared to be talking about a 2011 case involving two Iraqi citizens who came to the U.S. as refugees and settled in Bowling Green, Ky. The FBI arrested those two men and they were convicted of attempting to send weapons and money to terrorists inside of Iraq to kill U.S. soldiers. Those two men are now serving in federal prison.
The FBI press release on those sentences doesn’t mention anything about the two men trying to kill Americans in the United States, and several press reports said there is no evidence of any “massacre” in Bowling Green.
“The two men were never planning on committing an act of terrorism on US soil. Instead, they were trying to help get weapons to al Qaeda in Iraq. They were terrorists who should not have been allowed in the country, but they weren’t planning an attack in the United States,” CNN wrote. “And they didn’t kill anyone in Bowling Green (or anywhere else in the US).”
“CNN has reached out to the White House seeking explanation of Conway’s statement and have not yet received a response.”
The Washington Post, which like CNN has been a target for President Trump and his advisers, also pointed out Conway’s error. The Post also reported Conway was wrong that the Obama administration instituted a ban on Iraqis coming to the United States in the wake of the case.
“Obama administration officials told the Post that there was never a point when Iraqi resettlement was stopped or banned,” the Post wrote. “In the aftermath of the arrests of the two Iraqis living in Kentucky, the Obama administration imposed more extensive background checks on Iraqi refugees, and the new screening procedures created a dramatic slowdown in visa approvals.”
Conway wasn’t the only person to cite Bowling Green as a terrorist hotbed. Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul also referred to an “attempted bombing in Bowling Green” in an interview with MSNBC, but it’s not clear what he was referring to.
On @hardball @NBCNews @MSNBC I meant to say “Bowling Green terrorists” as reported here:
https://t.co/nB5SwIEoYI— Kellyanne Conway (@KellyannePolls) February 3, 2017
Conway attempted to walk back her statement Friday morning, saying she meant to say “terrorists” and not “massacre.”
