Mainstream media fail to fact-check Muslim Olympian's story

After ibtihaj muhammad, the first Muslim-American woman to win a gold medal, claimed last week that she had been detained by U.S. customs agents, her story was cited by numerous news outlets in an attempt to foment public disapproval of President Trump's executive order on immigration. There was just one tiny problem -- the athlete's detention occurred while Barack Obama was still president.

U.S. Customs official debunks Olympian's story

The Olympic gold medalist claimed on February 7 that her "inexplicable" detention happened just "a few weeks ago," which places the date of Muhammad's detention around inauguration day.

Nonetheless, media outlets were quick to pounce on the athlete's travel ban horror story. Fortunately, some journalists actually decided to investigate the gold medalist's claims -- and what was uncovered proves just how low the mainstream media will stoop in order to push their one-sided agenda.

The Washington Examiner spoke with one Customs and Border Enforcement official familiar with the incident who revealed that there was nothing unusual about Ibtihaj Muhammad's experience. The official explained that checks are performed at random and, since Muhammad travels quite extensively, it was just a statistical inevitability that sooner or later her number would come up. The agent also provided some cold, hard facts to back his claims.

“This all happened in December, which was well before any executive order," the Customs and Border Enforcement official said to the Washington Examiner. He also denied Muhammad's claim that she was held for two hours. "The entire ordeal wrapped up in under an hour," said the official.

Fake news story spreads like wildfire

The Olympian's story came to light after she was interviewed recently by Lindsay Miller of PopSugar, who asked Muhammad if she knew anyone who had been directly impacted by Trump's travel ban.

The athlete then told Miller about her ordeal.

As a result of the PopSugar interview several mainstream media outlets -- such as Time Magazine -- helped promote Muhammad's allegations with headlines proclaiming that an American Olympic athlete had been detained because of President Trump's travel ban.