The Daily Star
U.S. President Donald Trump said in an interview aired Sunday that the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was “very vicious” but that he wants to
stick with Saudi Arabia as a close ally in the Middle East. Under pressure to punish Saudi Arabia for Khashoggi’s death inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2, Trump questioned the alleged role of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, who is the kingdom’s de facto ruler.
“He told me that he had nothing to do with it,” Trump said in an interview with “Fox News Sunday,” adding that “many people” also said the crown prince had no knowledge of the killing.
The interview was taped Friday, hours before government sources said the CIA had briefed the Trump administration on the murder and its belief that Prince Mohammad ordered it.
Trump said Saturday that the CIA assessment was “very premature” and in the Fox News interview he said it may never be possible to know who ordered Khashoggi’s murder.
“Well, will anybody really know?” he said.
“He did have certainly people that were reasonably close to him and close to him that were probably involved. … But at the same time we do have an ally and I want to stick with an ally that in many ways has been very good.”
A source familiar with the CIA’s assessment said it was based largely on circumstantial evidence relating to the prince’s central role in running the Saudi government.
Trump said his administration has an audio recording related to the murder, provided by the Turkish government, but that he would not listen to it “because it’s a suffering tape, it’s a terrible tape.”
“I don’t want to hear the tape, no reason for me to hear the tape,” Trump said.
“I know everything that went on in the tape without having to hear it. … It was very violent, very vicious and terrible.”
Intelligence officials have been providing information to Trump for weeks about the journalist’s death, and he was briefed again by phone Saturday by CIA Director Gina Haspel and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders provided no details of his call but said the president has confidence in the CIA.
“Recent reports indicating that the U.S. government has made a final conclusion are inaccurate. There remain numerous unanswered questions with respect to the murder of Mr. Khashoggi,” the State Department said in a statement.
The president faces intense pressure from senior Democratic and Republican lawmakers to take tougher action against Saudi Arabia.
Some have said Trump should suspend arms sales to the kingdom and drop his support for the crown prince, but the president has so far resisted that pressure.
The U.S. government Thursday imposed economic sanctions on 17 Saudi officials for their alleged role in the killing, but the sanctions did not target the Saudi government.
A Republican member of the Senate intelligence committee said that so far, there is no “smoking gun” linking the crown prince to the killing. Sen. Roy Blunt of Missouri, who has received a confidential intelligence briefing on the matter, told ABC that “it’s hard to imagine” that the crown prince didn’t know about the killing, but he said, “I don’t know that we absolutely know that yet.”
He said that Congress will await the Trump administration’s report in the next two days and that the U.S. will need to be clear about the ramifications of sanctions, given Saudi Arabia’s strategic role in the Middle East.