The lack of scrutiny given by the mainstream media to Bolton and Pompeo’s claims is yet another troubling sign of the transformation of many mainstream media outlets into faithful government stenographers.

WASHINGTON — Just a week after the former CIA director and now secretary of state admitted that the agency prior to and under his direction “lied,” “cheated” and “stole,” Mike Pompeo has delivered another claim that, despite his recent admission of dishonesty, has been regurgitated with little scrutiny by a variety of media outlets.

In what Venezuelan government officials claimed was an attempt to provide cover for the failure of Tuesday’s U.S.-backed coup attempt to gain any traction, Pompeo claimed that Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro had been ready to flee to Havana, Cuba amid the early morning chaos of Tuesday’s failed military uprising, but had been convinced to stay by the Russian government. Pompeo made the claim during a Tuesday interview with CNN, stating:

He [Maduro] had an airplane on the tarmac. He was ready to leave this morning, as we understand it, and the Russians indicated he should stay.”

Pompeo then made a similar claim during a subsequent appearance on Fox News, stating that Maduro “was ready to go. He made a decision that we had been urging him to make for quite some time. And then he was diverted from that action by the Russians.”

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova outright denied Pompeo’s claim, calling his statements “absolute disinformation and fake news” and part of a U.S. effort to wage an “information war” in regards to current events in Venezuela.

However, as the coup attempt was underway Tuesday morning, Russian security officials did meet to discuss the situation. In addition, the Russian government stated that its small troop presence in Venezuela would not seek to aid the Maduro-led government in the event of any military uprising. MintPress reported on Russia’s numerous interests in Venezuela earlier this year and why it has sought to back the Maduro-led government amid U.S.-backed attempts to enact regime change.

MSM takes job as U.S. Gov’t stenographer

Neither CNN nor Fox chose to question the veracity of Pompeo’s claims or ask for any proof of them, even though Pompeo had stated to an audience in Texas just a week prior that when he “was a CIA director, we lied, we cheated, we stole… like, we had entire training courses. It reminds you of the glory of the American experiment.” In fact, the vast majority of mainstream outlets — including the Miami Herald, NPR, The Week and Bloomberg, among others — all failed to place Pompeo’s recent statement regarding the coup in the context of his recent statements about his time in the CIA.

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