Kellyanne Conway justifies travel ban with bogus 'Bowling Green massacre' -- and gets scorned online

Kellyanne Conway blamed two Iraqi refugees for a terrorist attack that never happened -- and social media users pounced on her for citing more "alternative facts."

The senior advisor to President Donald Trump cited the fictional "Bowling Green massacre" Thursday on MSNBC's "Hardball" to justify the executive order banning travelers from several predominantly Muslim nations, reported The Guardian.

Conway also falsely compared Trump's order to visa restrictions imposed in 2011 by then-President Barack Obama, which paused the processing of Iraqi refugees for six months after two of them were arrested in a failed attempt to send funding and weapons to al Qaeda in their home country.

This, in Conway's telling, became a successful attack in Kentucky's third-largest city -- home to Western Kentucky University and the source of all Corvettes built since 1981.

“I bet it’s brand new information to people that President Obama had a six-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," Conway told MSNBC's Chris Matthews. “Most people don’t know that because it didn’t get covered.”

Sen. Rand Paul, who lives in Bowling Green, made a similar claim Thursday night in another MSNBC interview, suggesting the men were charged in connection with an "attempted bombing."

In fact, there was no massacre and there was no attempted bombing, and Justice Department officials said in 2012 that the two Iraqi nationals were never even accused of plotting an attack in the U.S.

The two men are currently serving life sentences for federal terrorism-related offenses in a plot against American troops in Iraq.

Twitter users heaped scorn and derision over Conway for inventing a terrorist attack to justify the controversial travel ban, which has sparked protests nationwide.