Kellyanne Conway says Trump appointed the first woman to a top CIA job. He didn’t.
White House adviser Kellyanne Conway spent Thursday peddling some new "alternative facts" — dismissing the truth while promoting Trump administration hires and policies.
Yesterday, Conway tweeted praise for President Donald Trump's appointment of Gina Haspel to be second-in-command at the CIA, calling her the "first female" to serve in that role.
"Trump promotes another woman: first female to be second in command at the CIA," Conway tweeted.
But as former CIA spokesman George Little pointed out, that simply isn't the case — Barack Obama appointed Avril Haines as deputy director of the CIA in 2013.
"Are you going to correct this?" Little tweeted. "This is wrong wrong wrong. President Obama appointed Avril Haines as first female CIA #2."
Haspel, for her part, reportedly oversaw a "black site" — a secret CIA prison, known for harsh interrogations possibly including torture — under the George W. Bush administration. She was also reportedly involved in carrying out a controversial order to destroy video evidence of CIA torture sessions.
Conway also stumbled over the facts in another incident on Thursday. In an interview that aired on MSNBC, she cited a non-existent "massacre" by two Iraqi refugees as justification for Trump's recent executive order banning against citizens of seven Muslim-majority nations for at least 90 days and all refugees for at least 120 days.
Conway tweeted Friday morning that she had meant to refer to the two former Iraqi insurgents living in Wisconsin as "Bowling Green terrorists" — not that they had carried out a "Bowling Green massacre."