White House reverses, says Obama met uncle and lived with him

(Reuters) - President Barack Obama lived briefly with his Kenyan-born uncle while attending law school, the White House said on Thursday, reversing earlier statements that there was no record of the two men ever having met.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said he clarified the issue with the president directly after reports that Onyango Obama, who faced deportation from the United States, said he had housed his nephew temporarily.

A U.S. immigration judged ruled on Tuesday that the 69-year-old half brother of the president's late father could stay as a lawful U.S. resident despite decades dodging deportation and a 2011 drunken-driving arrest.

Barack Obama attended Harvard Law School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the late 1980s.

Carney said White House press staff had consulted the president's book for evidence of a meeting between the two men when the issue came up previously, but no one had posed the question to the commander in chief.