Journalist’s disappearance
President Trump says the U.S. is “demanding” answers in the disappearance of a well-known Saudi writer.
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump and members of Congress demanded answers Wednesday from Saudi Arabia about the fate of a prominent Saudi writer and government critic who disappeared a week ago after entering his country’s consulate in Istanbul.
Trump said he didn’t know what happened to Jamal Khashoggi and expressed hope that the 59year-old writer was still alive, but senior members of Congress said they were starting to fear the worst.
Republican Sen. Bob Corker, who has reviewed intelligence reports on the disappearance as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said that “the likelihood is he was killed on the day he walked into the consulate” and that “there was Saudi involvement” in whatever happened with Khashoggi, who wrote columns for The Washington Post.
“The Saudis have a lot of explaining to do because all indications are that they have been involved at minimum with his disappearance,” Corker said. “Everything points to them.”
Khashoggi, a wealthy former government insider who had been living in the U.S. in self-imposed exile, had gone to the consulate Oct. 2 to get paperwork he needed for his upcoming marriage while his Turkish fiancee waited outside.
Turkish authorities have said he was killed by members of an elite Saudi “assassination squad,” an allegation the Saudi government has dismissed.
Meanwhile, surveillance footage aired by Turkish media Wednesday purports to show a team of Saudis arriving in Istanbul the day Khashoggi went missing, a black van leaving the Saudi Consulate after he entered, and the team checking out and departing the country later that night.
The Sabah newspaper, which is close to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, identified the team members, including several alleged security officials, and published photos of each of them, apparently taken at passport control. It described them as an “assassination squad” sent to target Khashoggi.
The Saudi government has become a closer U.S. ally under Trump, and some U.S. lawmakers warn that relations could be jeopardized if it turns out the kingdom was involved in his disappearance.
Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that he has a call in to Khashoggi’s fiancee, Hatice Cengiz, who has appealed to the president and first lady Melania Trump for help.
Trump said he had spoken with the Saudis about what he called a “bad situation,” but he did not disclose details.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said national security adviser John Bolton and presidential senior adviser Jared Kushner spoke on Tuesday to Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman about Khashoggi. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo then had a follow-up call with the crown prince to reiterate the U.S. request for information and a transparent investigation.
While angry members of Congress likely won’t cause the administration to turn away from Crown Prince Mohammed and end decades of close security ties with Saudi Arabia, they could throw a wrench into arms sales that require their approval and demand the U.S. scale back support for the Saudi military campaign against Iran-backed rebels in Yemen.
Sen. Chris Murphy, DConn., said if Saudi Arabia had lured a U.S. resident into a consulate and killed him, “it’s time for the United States to rethink our military, political and economic relationship with Saudi Arabia.”