Pompeo: Take Iran’s claim of busting CIA spies ‘with a significant grain of salt’

US Secretary of Mike Pompeo is asked about Iran’s claim to have broken up a CIA spy ring and sentenced a number of its alleged members to death.

Pompeo, who headed the CIA before taking over at the State Department last year, won’t comment directly but says the Islamic Republic “has a long history of lying.”

“It is part of the nature of the ayatollah to lie to the world and I would take with a significant grain of salt any Iranian assertions about actions that they’ve taken,” he tells Fox News.

He also addresses the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’s seizure last week of a British-flagged tanker in the strategic Strait of Hormuz amid heightened tensions in the area between Iran and the United States.

“The responsibility in the first instance falls to the United Kingdom to take care of their ships,” he says.

Pompeo rejects the idea that Iran seized the ship due to biting US sanctions, saying it did so because of the regime’s “revolutionary zeal.”