Kayleigh McEnany claims she 'never lied' as Trump's White House press secretary

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Kayleigh McEnany claims she 'never lied' as Trump's White House press secretary
Then-President Donald Trump and then-White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany.Caitlin O'Hara/Getty Images
  • Kayleigh McEnany was Trump's White House press secretary from April 2020 to January 2021.
  • During that time, she was accused of lying and of misleading journalists on several occasions.
  • She told a conservative conference on Sunday that she'd "never lied" in her role.
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Kayleigh McEnany said she never lied while serving as President Donald Trump's White House press secretary, despite evidence that she did.

McEnany told the crowd at Turning Point USA's Young Women's Leadership Summit on Sunday: "As a woman of faith, as a mother of baby Blake, as a person who meticulously prepared at some of the world's hardest institutions, I never lied. I sourced my information."

The statement was at odds with her conduct as press secretary.

McEnany was accused of lying, bending the truth, and misleading the American public on numerous occasions from April 2020 to January.

Outlets including Indy100 and Refinery 29 have published lists of McEnany's false statements. PolitiFact, the fact-checking website run by the Poynter Institute, has rated several of her claims "mostly false," "false," or "pants on fire."

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For example, McEnany claimed last September that Trump "never downplayed" the dangers of the coronavirus. She'd said that shortly after the journalist Bob Woodward released audio of Trump saying he "wanted to always play it down."

In May 2020, McEnany claimed that the special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation was a "complete and total exoneration" of Trump.

Mueller's report said that while it "does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him."

Kayleigh McEnany claims she 'never lied' as Trump's White House press secretary
Kayleigh McEnany listens to Trump talk to reporters during a press conference in the White House Briefing on July 21, 2020.Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

McEnany was criticized after she defended Trump's claim that it was possible to vote twice and after she claimed that Biden's chance of flipping Texas in the election was "one in a quadrillion."

After leaving the White House in January, McEnany joined Fox News as a commentator and cohost of the talk show "Outnumbered."

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After several US news outlets covered her claim at the Young Women's Leadership Summit, McEnany tweeted, "Haters will hate!"

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