“I just spoke with the King of Saudi Arabia, and he denies any knowledge of what took place with regards to, as he said, to Saudi Arabia’s citizen,” Trump said while talking to reporters Monday morning. “He firmly denies that.”
“We are going to leave nothing uncovered,” Trump said later about the investigation into Khashoggi’s disappearance. “With that being said, the king firmly denies any knowledge of it. He didn’t really know, maybe, I don’t want to get into his mind, but it sounded to me like maybe it could have been rogue killers, who knows? We’re going to try get to the bottom of it very soon, but his was a flat denial.” [emphasis added]
So the Donald has talked to the King and now he is blabbing about it. We don't know how many times the King denied having any knowledge about Khashoggi's disappearance on the phone to Trump, but we do know that Trump has repeated that denial three times in this short statement that was also at pains to point out that while Khashoggi may have been a Washington Post reporter and a legal United States resident, he was also a subject of the King. Trump said he didn't "want to get into [the King's] mind," but! "it sounded to me like maybe it could have been rogue killers." Why would he say that if the King denied having any knowledge of his "disappearance?" It sounds to me like after his talk with the King,Trump was left with no doubt that Khashoggi had been murdered, and now he has already moved on to shifting the blame away from the Kingdom.I hope that at the next WHPC some reporter will ask just what the King said that made Trump think that Khashoggi had been murdered.
That's my take. What say you?
UPDATE 1:04PM PT: CNN's Clarissa Ward is reporting the Kingdom is preparing to admit that Khashoggi was killed in an interrogation gone bad. Was their hand forced by Trump's blabbing about "rogue killers," or has he been a part of this operation against Khashoggi from the beginning?
UPDATED 16 Oct. 7:00 PM PT: When I started writing this post yesterday, it was to make a different point, and it had a different title. I tabled that draft when I realized that the really important point to be made about Trump's "rogue killers" statement was that it was the first time either a US or Saudi official talked like he knew Khashoggi had been murdered. That was the breaking news yesterday.
Today, it seems appropriate to return to that original theme in light of a new statement from Trump. Yesterday, the first draft of this post began:
Does anyone else see a curious congruence between the way Trump & Company handled Dr. Christie Ford's allegations of attempted rape by Brett Kavanaugh, and the way they are handling the way they are handling the disappearance of Jamal Khashoggi?
Turkey has alleged that Khashoggi was murdered inside the Saudi Arabian embassy. They say they have convincing evidence, although no corpse has been found, or is likely to be found in the Turkish allegations are true.
In both cases they use a mis-applied presumption of innocence, combined with what they consider a lack of convincing evidence, to allow them to act like the crime never even happened.
The most curious thing about the way that they handled Dr. Ford's allegation that she was 100% sure that it was Kavanaugh that tried to rape her, was to say "We believe Dr. Ford." meaning they believe "somebody" tried to rape her, but she was just wrong about it being Kavanaugh.
With Trump's response this morning to a reporters question about the Khashoggi disappearance, it sounds like he wants to have it both ways again: "maybe it could have been rogue killers, who knows?" Meaning, he now believes Khashoggi was murdered, just not by the Kingdom.
Yesterday I abandoned that draft. Today the New York Post is reporting:
So, like I said. Its not at all surprising that Trump sees this obscene and curious congruence, since he is the author of it.Trump compares Khashoggi ‘murder’ to Kavanaugh accusations
By Tamar Lapin
16 October 2018
President Trump criticized those pointing fingers at Saudi Arabia in the case of missing journalist Jamal Khashoggi — comparing the situation to the sexual assault allegations leveled against US Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
“Here we go again with, you know, you’re guilty until proven innocent. I don’t like that. We just went through that with Justice Kavanaugh and he was innocent all the way as far as I’m concerned,” Trump said Tuesday.
Trump warned of a rush to judgement in the case.
“I think we have to find out what happened first,” he said. More...
UPDATE: Wednesday Thoughts: I suspect Trump so strongly denies the murder of Khashoggi by MBS because there are some US reporters that he would like to murder himself. If he is empowered by a GOP victory in November, journalists everywhere had better watch their backs.
Syria is the Paris Commune of the 21st Century!
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