TRUMP RELUCTANT TO LINK SAUDI PRINCE TO KILLING
President declines to hear recording of Saudi journalist’s death
Washington — President Donald Trump, under increasing pressure from lawmakers to punish Saudi Arabia in the killing of prominent journalist-critic Jamal Khashoggi, sided Sunday with the kingdom's de facto ruler, distancing himself from reported U.S. intelligence assessments that the crown prince had ordered the assassination.
In an interview aired on “Fox News Sunday,” Trump also said he had decided to skip listening to a “very vicious and terrible” audio recording of the Oct. 2 slaying of Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.
As more grisly details about the writer's death emerge, Trump has by turns professed a lack of curiosity and squeamishness, telling interviewer Chris Wallace there was “no reason” for him to listen to the purported death tape.
Washington — President Donald Trump said there is no reason for him to listen to a recording of the “very violent, very vicious” killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, which has put him in a diplomatic bind: how to admonish Riyadh for the slaying yet maintain strong ties with a close ally.
Trump, in an interview that aired Sunday, made clear that the audio recording, supplied by the Turkish government, would not affect his response to the Oct. 2 killing of Khashoggi, a columnist for The Washington Post who had been critical of the Saudi royal family.
“It’s a suffering tape, it’s a terrible tape. I’ve been fully briefed on it, there’s no reason for me to hear it,” Trump said in the interview with “Fox News Sunday.” “I know everything that went on in the tape without having to hear it.”
On Saturday, Trump said his administration will “be having a very full report over the next two days, probably Monday or Tuesday.” He said the report will include “who did it.” It was unclear if the report would be made public.
American intelligence agencies have concluded that the crown prince ordered the killing in the Saudi Consulate in Turkey, according to a U.S. official familiar with the assessment. The official was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. Others familiar with the case caution that while it’s likely the crown prince was involved in the death, there continue to be questions about what role he played.
Trump noted to “Fox News Sunday” that the crown prince has repeatedly denied being involved in the killing inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul.
“Will anybody really know?” Trump asked. “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 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.
“I know everything that went on in the tape without having to hear it.”
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP