TRUMP SAYS CIA ASSESSMENT OF KHASHOGGI CASE ‘VERY PREMATURE’ BUT POSSIBLE
MALIBU, CALIFORNIA— President Donald Trump on Saturday described as “very premature” a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) assessment blaming Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Trump, on a trip to California, said the killing “should never have happened.”
No report yet
The report on Tuesday will explain who the US government believes killed Khashoggi and what the overall impact of his murder is, Trump said. It was unclear who is producing the report.
Still working on it
But Trump also said the CIA finding that bin Salman was responsible for the killing was “possible.”
Trump made the remarks hours after the state department said the government was still working on determining responsibility for the death of Khashoggi, a US-based Washington Post columnist.
“Recent reports indicating that the US government has made a final conclusion are inaccurate,” state department spokesperson Heather Nauert said. “There remain numerous unanswered questions with respect to the murder of Mr. Khashoggi.”
Strategic relationship
Nauert said the state department would continue to seek facts and work with other countries to hold those involved in the journalist’s killing accountable “while maintaining the important strategic relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia.”
Trump discussed the CIA assessment by phone with the agency’s director, Gina Haspel, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, White House spokesperson Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters.
The CIA had briefed other parts of the US government, including Congress, on its assessment, sources told Reuters on Friday, a development that complicates Trump’s efforts to preserve ties with the key US ally.
CIA briefings
A source familiar with the CIA’s assessment said it was based largely on circumstantial evidence relating to the prince’s central role in running the Saudi government.
The CIA’s finding is the most definitive US assessment to date tying Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler directly to the killing and contradicts Saudi government assertions that Prince Mohammed was not involved.
Khashoggi was killed in October at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul when he went there to pick up documents he needed for his planned marriage.