"Discretion" (AKA lying) has been the acarna imperii since human society gave birth to politics. The outright falsehood is something unusual, however.

It's not that today the powers-that-be are destroying facts to make their political line convincing, which they do; the thing is they flout the very factual reality itself, and not because they have inveigled themselves with their own propaganda, which happens, but because they think the facts do not matter, that they can spin defeat as victory, make illusions real, fight and win wars in psychology.

De-factualised, their ideological-possession has made them not only lieutenants of righteous evildoing. De-factualised, they are made desensitised to the real world; as they act out their illusions there, they are senseless, they do not come in contact with the hard surface of reality which would jolt sense into them. They are idiots in the true meaning of the word; while they live and act in the world, they do not belong to it.

Thus the lying can be explained w/out accusing the US of an imperialist design in the Skripal CW hoax. Yes, the USA is an empire but imperialism is a relic of history when things were so much simpler.