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Kellyanne Conway brings up Benghazi scandal while discussing Donald Trump Jr's meeting with Russian lawyer

The White House aide brought the discussion back to 'lies' told by the Obama administration in 2012

Mythili Sampathkumar
New York
Monday 07 August 2017 16:18 EDT
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White House aide Kellyanne Conway referred to "lies" told by the Obama administration when asked about conflicting narratives about Donald Trump's knowledge of his son's meeting with a Russian lawyer.
White House aide Kellyanne Conway referred to "lies" told by the Obama administration when asked about conflicting narratives about Donald Trump's knowledge of his son's meeting with a Russian lawyer. (Chris Kleponis-Pool/Getty Images)

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Kellyanne Conway claimed the Obama administration told "big lies" about both the 2012 Benghazi controversy and Obamacare, when pressed on conflicting narratives surrounding a meeting with a Russian lawyer.

Ms Conway was being questioned on ABC's "This Week" programme on Donald Trump Jr's June 2016 meeting with Natalia Veselnitskaya, a lawyer with ties to the Kremlin. The President's eldest son initially said the meeting was to discuss Russia's halt on adoptions of children by US citizens.

He then amended his statement and released a string of emails which revealed that Mr Trump Jr was meeting with Ms Veselnitskaya - at an event that included then campaign manager Paul Manafort and White House aide and Ivanka Trump's husband Jared Kushner - to possibly gain incriminating information on opponent Hillary Clinton's alleged financial ties to Russia.

The meeting took place in Trump Tower in New York and records indicate the President was in the building at the time.

Donald Trump later referred to his son's meeting as "opposition research" and that any politician would have done the same.

The programme's host George Stephanopolous asked Ms Conway why Mr Trump's surrogates have differing views of the President's involvement and knowledge of that meeting.

Not skipping a beat, Ms Conway said: "You know, let's talk about telling the truth...Let's talk about a president looking Americans in the eye, who are still suffering eight years later, who were lied to. If you like your plan, you can keep your plan. If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor."

She then brought up the September 2012 attacks on US Government buildings in Benghazi, Libya, which resulted in the death of US Ambassador J Christopher Stevens.

Ms Clinton, who was serving as Secretary of State at the time, came under fire for not providing additional security for Mr Stevens and his staff and for allegedly withholding information to Congress and those investigating the attack by the small, armed group.

"Benghazi happened because of a video. Go tell the families of those four innocent Americans who were slaughtered in Benghazi that that lie mattered," said Ms Conway.

She said she was not changing the topic from Russia, adding "let's talk about credibility that impacts people...those were big lies".

Ms Conway ended the interview by calling the FBI investigation into alleged ties and collusion between the Trump campaign team and Russia "fabricated" but offered no evidence for her reasoning.

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