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The Trump administration official hand-delivered the plan last month in Riyadh, exactly two weeks after Khashoggi’s brutal murder Oct. 2 inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, reported Middle East Eye.
A senior Saudi source told the website the plan includes an option to blame the Washington Post columnist’s killing on an innocent member of the ruling al-Saud family to shield the crown prince and others at the top.
But that person has not yet been chosen, and Saudi leaders are still holding back on much of the plan until the pressure on bin Salman becomes too much to bear.
The U.S. State Department denied the Saudi source’s claims, saying they were “a complete misrepresentation of the secretary’s diplomatic mission to Saudi Arabia.”
Trump is running cover ... as expected.
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With a tone that indicates the statement was likely penned by Trump himself — complete with eight exclamation marks — Trump harped on the dangers of the world, justifying the Saudi assault of Yemen by bashing the Iranian government and its support of terror groups. Trump then jumped to the arms deal between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia, which he has cited as justification for continued positive relations with the kingdom since before the U.S. knew Washington Post writer Jamal Khashoggi — who was a permanent resident of Virginia — was tortured, murdered and dismembered.
Trump then called the crimes against Khashoggi “terrible” as he laid out what actions the U.S. has taken to punish those who participated in the torture and murder — like sanctions against 17 Saudis — before appearing to side with Saudi officials who have tagged Khashoggi as an “enemy of the state” and a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. While Khashoggi was widely known as a Saudi dissident, he did not identify as a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, though he did sympathize with and was friends with people who aligned with the movement, as the Brookings Institute pointed out.
In his statement, Trump was quick to clarify that Khashoggi’s political leanings did not impact his decision to bear hug the Saudis after the “unacceptable and horrible crime,” but as details of the murder unraveled in the media in recent weeks, Trump regularly raised Khashoggi’s immigration status while commenting on the writer’s death. Khashoggi was not a U.S. citizen, but was a permanent resident.
In public statements, Trump has suggested that it was crucial to know whether the Saudi king or crown prince were aware of plans to kidnap and murder the Washington Post writer, but he obliterated that notion in the statement.
“Our intelligence agencies continue to assess all information, but it could very well be that the Crown Prince had knowledge of this tragic event – maybe he did and maybe he didn’t!” he said.
Trump wasted no time on getting his apologetics out there.
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“It is stunning on a number of levels,” said Brown, “particularly the fact that the president hasn’t even received the report from his intelligence community.” The CIA says Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman personally ordered the murder of the Washington Post reporter.