Trump misdirection emboldens others

There’s a dark truth behind the disappearance of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi into a Saudi consulate in Turkey two weeks ago. The only question is whether President Donald Trump can be trusted to expose it.

That’s looking less likely. He has already lapsed into his unfortunate, recurring role as an apologist for brutal leaders who draw his favour. There were inklings of this on Monday (US time) after Trump spoke by phone with Saudi Arabian King Salman bin Abdulaziz and was assured that the missing journalist and American resident had not – as Turkish officials allege – been murdered by a Saudi assassin team, possibly on the orders of the king’s son, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Where is Trump going with this misdirection? Evidence of Saudi Arabia’s guilt is mounting by the day. The worry is that Trump is playing for time, perhaps hoping the nation’s attention will wane as the US midterm elections approach. If Trump keeps stalling or worse, Congress must act, as it has in pushing tougher sanctions against Russia.

Republican Senator Marco Rubio has expressed the right idea: ‘‘Our ability to call Putin a murderer — because he is; our ability to call Assad a murderer — because he is . . . all of that is undermined and compromised if we somehow decide that because an ally (Saudi Arabia) who was important did that, we are not going to call it out.’’