White House adviser Kellyanne Conway isn’t the only Trump administration staff member to cite a fake terror attack. Press Secretary Sean Spicer has repeatedly mentioned an alleged incident in Atlanta alongside “San Bernardino and Boston” when justifying the controversial travel ban executive order.
While the December 2015 shooting in San Bernardino, California, and the April 2013 bombing at the Boston Marathon were real and horrific attacks carried out by Islamist terrorists on American soil, there has never been such an attack recorded in Atlanta. Yet it is Atlanta that the press secretary has referenced on multiple occasions.
After President Donald Trump implemented an executive order on immigration, he put into effect a travel ban affecting seven Muslim-majority countries across the Middle East and Africa. Opposition to the travel ban resulted in hundreds of protests at airports across the U.S. In the weeks that followed, Trump’s advisers and other staff have attempted to explain the ban as a measure intended to protect citizens from terrorism.
On Jan. 29, Spicer appeared on ABC’s This Week and is quoted as saying, “What do we say to the family that loses somebody over a terroristic (sic)… whether it’s Atlanta or San Bernardino or the Boston bomber?”
The following day, on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, he worked through the same ramble—again, mentioning an Atlanta attack.
“Too many of these cases that have happened, whether you’re talking about San Bernardino, Atlanta, they’ve happened, Boston,” Spicer said.
The press secretary could be talking about a pipe bomb explosion at the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games, but that was carried out by a right-wing domestic terrorist from Florida.
On Monday, Trump complained that the “dishonest” media had failed to report terror attacks. However, in the extensive list of 78 terror incidents released by the White House later that day, to prove the president’s point, there was no mention of an Atlanta attack.
So, after Conway’s gaffe reference to the “Bowling Green Massacre” that never happened, it appears that Spicer, too, has confused his alternative facts somewhere along the line.
H/T The Daily Beast