I've read the.Colin Powell story very carefully in recent days. I know about the CIA's part. He made those claims at the UN in the kind of words I've described knowing that he'd seen no evidence and that he was passing on what he definitely should have known to have been a potential untruth, yet his words transmitted certainty. He held one of the highest and most influential offices in the western world. There's plenty of connection with his time and Trump. He suffered later for his lies but Blair and Bush both got away with it (they both won their next elections, for example). They discovered that lies, even ones that kill thousands, can be a useful political ploy. Since then we've had two of the worst serial liars in political history in power in our two countries. Bush, Blair, Powell, Johnson and Trump found that lies can suit your political agenda very nicely.