In an appearance on Fox News, Donald Trump claimed “We're probably getting closer than you might think" to finding out what happened to missing Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Despite his claims, there is widespread concern that Trump’s close relationship to Saudi leader Mohammed bin Salman could lead to Khashoggi’s disappearance being “swept under the rug.” And fresh evidence has emerged that whatever happened to Khashoggi, it happened at the Saudi consulate.
Khashoggi, a critic of bin Salman and the Saudi incursion into Yemen, entered the consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2 to obtain documents so he could marry his Turkish fiancée. Security videos showed the journalist going into the building, but no video has showed him coming out. NBC reports that just before entering the Saudi consulate, Khashoggi exchanged messages with a friend in the U.S. However, messages sent to Khashoggi’s phone a few minutes later show as received, but not read. The “last seen” feature of WhatsApp noted Khashoggi at 1:06 PM in Istanbul. That’s just eight minutes before he entered the consulate.
As both journalists and politicians call for the U.S. to take action concerning the journalist’s disappearance—especially following stories that U.S. intelligence was aware of threats to Khashoggi before he went to the consulate—Politico reports that many are concerned that Trump may be in no hurry to get to the truth. Trump has a close relationship with the new crown prince of Saudi Arabia. Trump and his son-in-law Jared Kushner visited with bin Salman and supported him in displacing the previous crown prince and getting rid of his opponents. Kushner, who has since spent more time at bin Salman’s lavish home, is also suspected of providing the Saudi leader with classified information naming opponents who may have since been jailed or executed.
Since he fled Saudi Arabia, Khashoggi has spent most of his time in the United States. The Washington Post previously reported that bin Salman had ordered an operation to lure Khashoggi back to Saudi Arabia, where he could be detained or killed. It appears that these plans were not relayed to the missing journalist. On the day of Khashoggi’s disappearance, two Saudi planes arrived in Istanbul and a team of Saudi intelligence officers was seen entering the city. Some rumors have indicated that the journalist was smuggled back to Saudi Arabia. More gruesome stories suggest he was killed and dismembered at the consulate.
Trump’s statements on Fox News indicate that he knows Khashoggi is dead.
Trump: He went in and it doesn't look like he came out … doesn't look like he's around.
Considering the statements Trump has made about U.S. journalists being the “enemy of the people,” his frequent praise for bin Salman, and his recent successful push to sell a record amount of U.S. military goods to the Saudis, it’s easy to assume that Trump would be less than enthusiastic about investigating Khashoggi’s disappearance. Trump has already insisted that he will not delay the military sale to the Saudis even though he “doesn’t like” the disappearance of Khashoggi. But after all, the journalist is “not even a U.S. citizen.”
Others in Washington seem much more concerned, with one analyst saying that “If the Saudis don’t come up with a credible answer to this, they’re done in this town.” However, it’s hard to see how that’s the case when Trump and Kushner are reluctant to let anything get in the way of the relationship to bin Salman, the $110 billion of military sales, or the big bailout coming to Kushner’s business after the Saudis leaned on Qatar.
Trump has already demonstrated his willingness to go along with killing journalists. Despite more than 200 journalists killed in Russia since 1993, Trump has insisted that “no one can even name” the journalists who were supposedly killed in Putin’s Russia. Before the election, Trump went further in an interview with Joe Scarborough, waving away any murdered journalists, because Putin was “a leader, unlike what we have in this country.”
Scarborough: But, again: He kills journalists that don't agree with him.
Trump: Well, I think that our country does plenty of killing, too, Joe.
Donald Trump is the person who cages journalists at his rallies and encourages his supporters to scream at and threaten them. He’s the guy who declares “fake news” every time someone writes a story he doesn’t like. And he praises leaders who have killed journalists by the truckload.
Mohammed bin Salman has every reason to believe that Trump will support him, even if his men did chop up Jamal Khashoggi on the floor of the Saudi consulate. After all, if bin Salman kills journalists … it only shows that he’s a leader. Trump just wants to know where he bought the swords.