President Trump praised Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman as a “strong person” with “very good control” despite top U.S. lawmakers and our intelligence agencies saying it’s likely he ordered the killing of a Washington Post writer.
While Trump criticized Saudi Arabia’s initial explanation about the death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at their Turkish consulate, which he helped circulate claiming it was “rogue killers,” Trump refused to be critical of bin Salman in an interview with the Washington Post.
“He is a strong person, he has very good control,” Trump told the Post. “He’s seen as a person who can keep things under check. I mean that in a positive way.”
Trump said the evidence that so many of the crown prince’s close associates were involved in the killing did not convince him that MBS was to blame. Some congressional Republicans, including Trump ally Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) and Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), have blamed the prince and called for the kingdom to be punished. A bipartisan group of lawmakers has signed a letter expressing alarm about Khashoggi’s death.
“If he’s gone forth and murdered this journalist, he’s now crossed the line. And there has to be a punishment and a price paid for that,” Sen Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “Do I think he did it? Yes, I think he did it.”
Corker, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was one of four prominent senators who indicated on Sunday shows that they believe the 33-year-old crown prince ordered Khashoggi’s killing.
“I feel certain that the crown prince was involved and that he directed this,” Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said on “Fox News Sunday.”
“The crown prince has his fingerprints all over this,” Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
“It looks like it based on the people who were involved in the actual act,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said on NBC when asked if the crown prince ordered the killing.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said last week that Mohammed — known colloquially as “MBS” — has “got to go,” and Tillis on Sunday indicated he would be open to exploring the crown prince’s removal as the heir to the throne depending on the outcome of an independent investigation.
Saudi officials have failed to answer for where Khashoggi’s remains are and have offered inconsistent narratives for how he was killed, undermining the government’s assertion that Khashoggi died after a fistfight broke out when he was confronted by agents seeking to bring him back to Riyadh while he was visiting the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2.
That explanation will face a fresh challenge on Tuesday when Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is expected to reveal details of his government’s investigation into the killing of Khashoggi, a move that could directly contradict Saudi Arabia’s official account of what happened inside its consulate.
Erdogan said he would explain the episode “in a very different way” when his ruling party meets, adding to the already intense global pressure Saudi leadership has faced to provide a full picture of how Khashoggi was killed.
“We seek justice and this will be revealed in all its naked truth, not through some ordinary steps but in all its naked truth,” Erdogan said on Sunday, according to the semiofficial Anadolu news agency. “The incident will be revealed entirely.”
Trump also has a reason to defend Saudi Arabia for business reasons. By his own admission, he’s done millions and millions of dollars worth of business there.
Son-in-law Jared Kushner also has a massive amount of business dealings in Saudi Arabia. In fact, the United States has no ambassador accredited in Riyadh. Instead, the relationship is in the hands of Kushner, which in itself could be a massive financial conflict.
Trump registered eight companies during his presidential campaign that were tied to hotel interests in Saudi Arabia.