President Donald Trump reportedly boasted that he had forced Congress to fire Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, after the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Or, in Trump’s words, “I kept his ass. “
“I controlled to convince Congress to leave him alone,” journalist Bob Woodward said, quoting Trump in 2018, after Khashoggi was dismembered at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October. “I was able to get them arrested. “
Woodward, in a passage from his upcoming e-book quoted through Business Insider, reports that Trump told him in January that he knew “everything” about “the total situation” of Khashoggi’s death.
The CIA reportedly assessed Bin Salman’s order in the months following the assassination, but Trump countered that assessment and called it “very premature. “Since then, it has been under pressure for the value of U. S. weapons purchased through Saudi Arabia.
The same month as Khashoggi’s assassination, Trump said the Saudi government had committed to a $110 billion arms deal with the United States; that, as TPM reported, such an agreement did not exist.
Speaking to Woodward in January, Trump pressed that bin Salman “will say he didn’t. “
“He says that to everyone and, frankly, I’m glad he’s saying it. “
Trump dodged Woodward’s attempts to explain his own ideals about the murder, saying instead, “Bob, they spent $400 billion in a short period of time. “We don’t know what he meant.
“And you know, they’re in the Middle East,” Trump continued. “You know, they’re fat. Because of their devoted monuments, you know, they have genuine power. They have oil, but they also have the wonderful monuments of religion. You know what’s true? For this religion.
“It wouldn’t last a week if we weren’t there, and you know it,” Trump added, according to Woodward’s e-book passage quoted by Business Insider.
Trump’s direction has continually stretched his neck towards Saudi Arabia. The State Department, for example, used an emergency declaration in 2019 to circumvent Congress’ notification of an $8 billion arms sales package to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan. the inspector general investigating the arms movement after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo asked him to.