Hate to say this, but I can show you quite a few statements made by elders that weren't accurate. I'm not saying he's a bad person, etc, by saying that either. I'm sure he's a good/fine man.

But it seems you might have a presupposition that people in certain positions can't or wouldn't do things like give carefully crafted statements, etc, to paint a picture or influence the narrative/image the way they would like.

The first time I ever experienced this was on my mission. I asked my mission president about black people asking us if the bom said that black people had their skin changed. My mission president said that since it was talking about native americans and not black people that we should just say no. Especially if they had no intention of reading it. I was like wah? But did it anyway when my companion said it's okay to lie for the lord if it's to fulfill his purposes. I would never handle it that way now but obviously I was young. This was in 98, baltimore mission. I really doubt presidents and missionaries are botching questions like that now. They've created somewhat better apologetics/answers since then.