Can't really be bothered about this personally. On a purely professional level: I would have decided the same as his boss - albeit arguably for somewhat different reasons!
While I'm not a PR professional, I have been giving tons of "professional presentation training" as sort of a side-line to my main job - and I would not have liked that guy's performance if he had been one of my trainees!
Look, so: there were the many times that he brazenly lied and was caught doing so - from a personal standpoint, I don't like it, but: as a professional: I wouldn't mind: if that's the job, that's the job! If the message you're being paid to push is not factual, well, ... do you want to get paid or do you not?!
Why I think what I think is: he's smug! And, generally speaking, smugness is bad in communications! It might make a few people (who almost always already agree with you) feel satisfied - but it comes across really poorly to everyone else. And it fundamentally really doesn't matter whether you're a consultant, smugly trying to patronise your client into buying your services, or a government spokesperson, trying the same with your narrative. Smugness turns people off.
One of the things I teach people in training is to always "read the room" and - if necessary - throw in a little self-depcrecating humour, or a personal story to, essentially, humanise themselves a little and not come across as ... again: smug! (Have yet to encounter an "employee who antagonises foreign governments, to be honest!)
In that sense: couldn't really care about his appointment, but I, too, would have disciplined him - on "performance" grounds.