By Donald V. Watkins
©Copyrighted and Published on November 20, 2018
Yesterday, we reported that President Donald Trump would find a way to give Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman a pass on his Royal Order to murder Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Today, Trump did just what we reported. He announced that the U.S. would not sanction Saudi Arabia for torturing and murdering Khashoggi. Shockingly, Khashoggi’s body was dismembered after his October 2, 2018 gruesome murder at the Saudi Embassy in Turkey.
Initially, the Saudis attempted to cover-up Knashoggi’s murder by simply denying it. Eventually, they admitted that Khashoggi was murder, but claimed the Crown Prince was not involved even though the killers were linked directly to him.
As choreographed between Trump and the Saudis, the President parroted every explanation the Saudi’s provided for Khashoggi’s murder and found each one of the ever-changing explanations to be "credible."
Last week, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency joined other foreign intelligence agencies in concluding that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman personally ordered Khashoggi’s murder. The CIA 's report did not matter to Trump because he was already compromised.
Trump said he was standing up for the Kingdom and Crown Prince because Saudi Arabia is a “great ally.” Of course, this was a pretext for Trump’s real motivation for condoning politically motivated murder.
Trump and son-in-law Jared Kushner have close business ties to the Kingdom. It has been an open secret in Washington for the last six weeks that Trump would not take any meaningful action against the Saudis for Khashoggi's murder. In fact, one of Trump’s undisclosed assignments is the protection of the Crown Prince's and Trump Organization’s private business interests in Saudi Arabia, by any and all means necessary.
Furthermore, Trump has a knack for embracing every murderous despot who will meet with him and stroke his oversized ego and finance his businesses. With his “no sanctions” announcement today, Trump has officially embraced the murder of political dissidents as an acceptable political tool.
It is well known that Donald Trump will always place his private business interests ahead of America’s national interests whenever the two conflict. As a result, there was never going to be justice for Jamal Khashoggi as long as the Saudis and Russians finance Trump's business empire.
PHOTO: Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (left), President Donald J. Trump (center), and Jared Kushner (right) taking care of their business.
