Trump Jr. reiterates claim to missing Saudi journalist


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Khashoggi, a former Saudi royal insider who became a critic of the country's government, disappeared last week after entering the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, to obtain papers to marry his fiancee. Turkish.

The Turkish authorities claimed to believe that Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist, had been killed inside the consulate, a surprising assertion that is firmly denied by the Saudis.

The series of tweets that Trump Jr. re-tweeted on Friday included an article by Patrick Poole, who, according to his Twitter profile, would be a correspondent for national security and terrorism for PJ Media, a conservative-looking news and commentary blog. , formerly known as Pajamas Media.

In his tweet, Poole shared images of a newspaper article written by Khashoggi about Mujahideen.

On a photo accompanying the article, Khashoggi, a prominent journalist in the Middle East, appears alongside individuals identified as members of the Islamist group and holds a rocket propelled grenade launcher. A separate photo in the article shows Osama Bin Laden and some of his associates. Bin Laden co-founded Al Qaeda in the late 1980s.

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In the tweet, Poole wrote: "I did not understand until yesterday that Jamal Khashoggi was the author of this notorious article published by the Arab News newspaper in 1988, trafficking Afghanistan with Osama bin Laden and the United States. -Founder of Al Qaeda, Abdullah Azzam.He is only a Democratic reformist journalist holding a RPG with jihadists. "

Khashoggi covered Al Qaeda as a foreign correspondent in Afghanistan and Sudan and was well known for his many interviews with Osama Bin Laden. He left Bin Laden after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. At the time of the press article published by Poole, the United States was arming and financing the mujahideen of the war between the Soviet Union and Afghanistan.

Sean Davis, co-founder of The Federalist, retweeted Poole's message with a comment affirming Iran's influence on Khashoggi's media reports, suggesting an effort by Iran to harm the US-Saudi relations. Iran and Saudi Arabia are long-time rivals.

"It's almost as if the reality was very different from the untested stories being peddled by media with a long history of cooperation with Iran or fooled by Iranian chamber architects," Davis wrote on Twitter.

Trump Jr. then retweeted Davis' comment.

On Friday night, the Trump organization did not immediately respond to CNN's request on Trump Jr.'s Twitter post.

Track of proof

According to a US official familiar with the intelligence services, the United States exchanged conversations with Saudi officials who discussed a plan to lure Khashoggi into Saudi Arabia and keep him in detention, but it is unclear whether the initial plan was to kill Khashoggi or if something was wrong. Consulate and that he could have been killed during an attempt at kidnapping.
A US official aware of the latest intelligence information told CNN that "the working hypothesis" in Washington is currently: Jamal Khashoggi was murdered inside the Istanbul consulate .

"We are pretty well aware that this has probably happened and that everything has gone well," said the manager, who also warned that it was about the latest assessment and that it "s all right. no conclusions were drawn.

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However, US authorities have so far refused to approve a Turkish assessment of Khashoggi's death, which includes – according to Turkish allegations – audio and video recordings from the consulate revealing that Khashoggi was killed.
Senate President for External Relations, Bob Corker, told CNN that the "information" was being sent directly to the Saudis about Khashoggi's disappearance.
After the demise, Trump and his administration resisted cutting ties with Saudi Arabia, a key partner in US defense and trade.

Although the Saudis issued a broad denial of responsibility, they did not provide any concrete evidence to prove that Khashoggi had left his consulate or was still alive.

United States response

On Friday, Trump promised to raise the issue with Saudi King Salman and says the responses will come "earlier than expected", but senior administration officials have described a process that could take weeks or even months , to determine what happened to Khashoggi and develop an American response if he is determined that he was killed by order of the Saudi government.

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A combination of Trump's worldview and his ambitions in the Middle East has made the White House reluctant to criticize Saudi Arabia or Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the 33-year-old de facto leader in the Middle East. the kingdom.

Trump made it clear that his administration would not make human rights abroad a priority; he and especially his son-in-law and senior advisor, Jared Kushner, maintain close ties with the Crown Prince; and Trump has a long-standing business relationship with Saudi Arabia, where he made his first trip abroad as president.

In addition, Trump has set a trio of goals in the Middle East, which depend on Saudi leaders and their money. The kingdom is at the center of the Trump administration's objectives on peace in the Middle East, its efforts to fight the Islamic State in Syria and elsewhere, and its foreign policy priority of counter Iran.

This combination of factors explains the unobtrusive reactions of the United States as a result of the aggressive actions taken by Saudi foreign policy and the unobtrusive reaction of Khashoggi's alleged assassination. They also create a dilemma for the White House, as lawmakers took the initiative on Wednesday to force the US to end US foreign policy values ​​by launching an investigation into US foreign policy. human rights that may lead to sanctions.

Questioned in an interview given to CBS's "60 Minutes" broadcast on Sunday, he imposed sanctions on Saudi Arabia when he was responsible for Khashoggi's disappearance, Trump said. repeated that he had declared that he did not want to do anything that would force the US Army. contractors to lose an order to sell arms, a reference to billions of dollars in arms sales to the country.

"There are other ways to punish, to use a rather hard but true word," he said, adding that "we will get to the bottom of things and the penalties will be severe".

Kevin Liptak of CNN, Bard Wilkinson, Nic Robertson and Laura Smith-Spark contributed to this report.

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