Trump defends Saudi Arabia’s denial
WASHINGTON >> President Donald Trump declared his strong support for Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, effectively ignoring the CIA’s conclusion that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the brutal killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi and asserting that it should not derail relations with a critical ally.
In an exclamation-markpacked statement that aides said he dictated himself, Trump said U.S. intelligence would continue to “assess” information, but that the United States “may never know all the facts surrounding the murder.”
Speaking of whether the crown prince knew about or ordered the killing by Saudi agents last month in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Trump said “maybe he did or maybe he didn’t!” But the president indicated that U.S. interests in Saudi oil production, weapons purchases and support for administration policies in the Middle East were more important than holding an ally to account, and he stressed the importance of staying in the kingdom’s good graces.
“They have been a great ally,” he said of the Saudis, and “the United States intends to remain a steadfast partner.” Speaking later to reporters as he left the White House for his Florida resort, Trump said, “I’m not going to destroy our economy by being foolish with Saudi Arabia,” he said.
Trump’s defense of the Saudis, whose leaders have denied knowledge of the operation while acknowledging that its agents carried it out, marks another instance when he has sided with the personal assurances of an autocrat over the analysis of his own intelligence officials.
He also took the word of Russian President Vladimir Putin that he didn’t interfere in the 2016 election, despite the unanimous conclusions of the U.S. intelligence community to the contrary. And Trump continues to praise North Korea’s dictator, Kim Jong Un, and declare the threat from its nuclear-weapons program neutralized, even though U.S. intelligence is still tracking the development of missiles and nuclear weapons material.
Tuesday’s startling presidential statement was quickly condemned by lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.
“I never thought I’d see the day a White House would moonlight as a public relations firm for the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia,” Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., wrote on Twitter.
Corker, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, must decide whether to use the handful of days left in the legislative term to consider a bipartisan bill, introduced last week, to stop virtually all U.S. weapons sales and military assistance to the Saudis in response to both the war in Yemen and Khashoggi’s killing. A similar measure has been introduced in the House.
Sen. Robert Menendez, N.J., the ranking Democrat on the committee, joined Corker in sending a letter to Trump on Tuesday demanding that the administration make a determination specifically addressing whether Mohammed was responsible for the killing.
Sen. Mark Warner, Va., the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Trump’s “failure to hold Saudi Arabia responsible in any meaningful way . . . is just one more example of this White House’s retreat from American leadership on issues like human rights and protecting the free press.”