While I have strong feelings about the Saudis capturing, killing, and apparently dismembering a Washington Post contributor (so they could carry his body out of the Saudi consulate in Instanbul in separate boxes) when he traveled to Turkey to obtain a marriage license, I wasn't necessarily planning to discuss it here because it's a little outside of my wheelhouse.
This is not, however, and this raises some very serious questions.
Investigators believe a team of 15 Saudi agents traveled to Turkey to torture, kill, and disappear Washington Post contributor Jamal Khashoggi and the Washington Post reports that American intelligence may have known this was going to happen.
Before Khashoggi’s disappearance, U.S. intelligence intercepted communications of Saudi officials discussing a plan to capture him, according to a person familiar with the information. The Saudis wanted to lure Khashoggi back to Saudi Arabia and lay hands on him there, this person said. It was not clear whether the Saudis intended to arrest and interrogate Khashoggi or to kill him, or if the United States warned Khashoggi that he was a target, this person said.
If intelligence officials were aware of the Saudi plan, did they notify anyone?
If not, why not?
Trump regime officials and Trump himself are playing dumb and feigning ignorance about the murderous plans of their best buddy Mohammed bin Salman (usually referred to as simply MBS), but we have reason to believe they knew this was going to happen. It's possible this information could have even been contained in one of the daily intelligence reports that Trump doesn't pay attention to unless they include pictures.
Several Republicans in Congress have said they want answers to these questions, but I don't expect we'll see them make a serious attempt to get to the bottom of it. Like many other things, we'll need to elect Democrats if we want to see even a minimal level of oversight of the executive branch of government.
Khashoggi was not the only journalist murdered in recent days and the Trump regime has barely said a word about any of it.
Their silence does speak volumes, however, and it's increasingly clear that you can murder journalists and carry out assassinations even within the borders of our closest allies and the United States will do very little if anything about it under Trump.