PRESIDENT TRUMP WILL NOT PUNISH THE SAUDI’S, NO MATTER WHAT THEY DID

…A picture of the man that was apparently tortured and murdered.

Trump seems to believe the Saudi’s denial about having nothing to do with Khashoggi. Trump also believed Roy Moore’s, Putin's and Kavanaugh's denials.

President Trump has said that there would be “severe punishment” for Saudi Arabia if the United States determines that Saudi agents killed Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, calling the journalist’s suspected murder “really terrible and disgusting.”

So far, the Turkish agents are reluctant to say how they were able to obtain recordings that prove that Khashoggi was detained, interrogated, tortured, killed and dis-membered in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, Turkey.

However, knowing that for years, Trump has personally profited from the Saudi’s in their making sure that Trump’s hotels are profitable, his sales of New York highly expensive condos to other Saudi’s that continues, and now that his son-in-law has a close relationship to the Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman  (MBS).  If this relationship remains intact, any real “severe punishment” is going to be in serious question.

“Well, nobody knows yet [what happened], but we’ll probably be able to find out,” Trump said in the interview with Lesley Stahl of CBS’s “60 Minutes,” which aired in full last Sunday night. “It’s being investigated, it’s being looked at very, very strongly. And we would be very upset and angry if that were the case. As of this moment, they deny it, and they deny it vehemently. Could it be them? Yes.”

Trump added, “We’re going to get to the bottom of it, and there will be severe punishment.”

Yeah, right.......

Even though US intelligence intercepts have shown that Saudi officials were recorded discussing an operation to lure Khashoggi, a Saudi citizen / reporter, who had been living in the United States, back to Saudi Arabia,  This would have been to come from his home in Virginia, just to detain and question him....?  

Khasshoggi's former reporting had been very critical of the Saudi government and he was in personnel exile in the US because he was afraid of what the Saudi’s might do to him for his critical reporting.  He had gone to Turkey to obtain a document from the Saudi Consulate that he needed for his up-coming marriage.  He felt he would be safe in Turkey, versus going back to Saudi Arabia, apparently he was very wrong.

It is now being said that he may have set his Apple watch to record his visit to the consulate.  If he did, and if he was tortured and killed as has been reported, the whole horrible event may have been recorded.

The point is, that whatever Trump decides to do, it probably won’t be that severe.

The president has all but ruled out canceling $110 billion in US arms sales to Saudi Arabia, arguing that doing so would be “very foolish for our country” and would only end up harming US defense industries and others.  Trump said: “Ditching Saudi arms deal over Khashoggi would be 'very foolish'. “

Trump said the United States competed against China, Russia and other countries for the Saudi contracts, and winning them was “a tremendous order for our companies.  I actually think we’d be punishing ourselves if we did that,” Trump told reporters, referring to canceling the arms deal. “There are other things we could do that are very, very powerful, very strong, and we’ll do that.”

But when asked about possible financial sanctions on Saudi Arabia, Trump is not in favor of sanctions.

The Saudi's have responded that if there are severe actions, they would double or triple the barrel price for their oil, and that would be a problem for the US and the world's economies.

Trump declined to provide an example of any action he was considering to punish Saudi Arabia, saying only that “there are many things we could do.”

Trump said that the incident in Turkey is being investigated and that the Saudis deny any involvement, despite the mounting evidence that the Saudi regime was implicated in Khashoggi’s disappearance way back on Oct. 2.

Asked whether Trump had reviewed the recordings from Turkey, Trump said he has not. He then turned to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to ask if he had seen them, to which the top diplomat replied, “Mr. President, I have not seen it.”

“We’ve all heard a lot about the audio,” Trump said. “Nobody’s seen it yet. We do want to see it.” The president confirmed that he had asked the Turkish government to share the recordings and added, “We’re going to be seeing it very soon.”

(How do you see an audio recording...?)

Trump said he had called King Salman of Saudi Arabia to discuss the Khashoggi matter.  The king said he knew nothing about the killing.  But the king of Saudi Arabia doesn't have anything to do with running the country.  That's the job of the crown Prince, MBS.

Pompeo told reporters: “There’s a lot still to learn.”

Trump said that he had invited Khashoggi’s fiancee, Hatice Cengiz, to visit him at the White House and that his staff was working out arrangements with her. The president said that Cengiz wrote “a beautiful letter” to him and first lady Melania Trump and that they would welcome her.

The Saudi government issued a statement Saturday morning condemning and denouncing “the false accusations circulated in media reports on the Saudi government and other people in the purported relation to the disappearance” of Khashoggi.

The statement said Saudi’s interior minister, Prince Abdulaziz bin Saud bin Naif bin Abdulaziz, “stressed that what has been circulating in terms of supposed orders to kill Jamal are outright lies and baseless allegations against the Kingdom’s government, which is committed to its principles, rules and traditions and is in compliance with international laws and conventions.”

(We must remember that Saudi Arabia had said that "There were no Saudi's involved in the 911 attacks on the US."  When all was over, 14 of the 19 individuals involved were from Saudi Arabia.)

The interior minister praised a joint investigation with Turkey and said the kingdom wants to “clarify the whole truth” about Khashoggi’s disappearance.

The statement offered no new details from the kingdom, which has steadfastly claimed it had no role in Khashoggi’s disappearance. But the careful wording appeared to leave open the possibility that Khashoggi died or was killed during an attempt to detain him, as some have speculated.

In London, Turkey’s foreign minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu, said that Turkish and Saudi officials have been talking, and the Turkish forensic investigators were finally allowed to "inspect" some rooms in the consulate and the counsel's home.  But that was 14 days ago, and why not let them seriously investigate (not just inspect) all of the facilities, if they are not guilty?

“We haven’t seen any collaboration on this issue,” the foreign minister said. “Officials need to work with us on this.”

Trump told Stahl that Jared Kushner, his son-in-law and a senior White House adviser, spoke by phone with Crown Prince MBS, who denied any involvement.

“They deny it,” Trump said. “They deny it every way you can imagine. In the not too distant future, I think we’ll know an answer.”

Stahl asked Trump about his options to retaliate against the Saudis, including possibly imposing economic sanctions against the oil-rich desert kingdom, as a bipartisan group of senators has proposed.

“Well, it depends on what the sanction is,” Trump replied. “I’ll give you an example. They are ordering military equipment. Everybody in the world wanted that order. Russia wanted it, China wanted it, we wanted it. We got it, and we got all of it, every bit of it.”

As usual, not a word of yea or nay on any sanctions.

Asked if he would cancel the arms sales, Trump hesitated.

“Well, I’ll tell you what I don’t want to do,” he said. “Boeing, Lockheed, Raytheon, I don’t want to hurt jobs. I don’t want to lose an order like that. And you know what, there are other ways of punishing, to use a word that’s a pretty harsh word, but it’s true.”

The president added, “There’s a lot at stake. And, maybe especially so because this man was a reporter. There’s something……you’ll be surprised to hear me say that, there’s something really terrible and disgusting about that if that was the case so we’re going to have to see.

(The Republican Senator, Lindsay Graham said on National TV, that the Saudi's have always "disrespected the United States" and that the "US Congress will do some serious punishment if the Saudi's are found guilty".  He questioned if the Trump administration would do anything.)

I believe Trump will not do anything serious to penalize the Saudi’s. 

You just watch what he doesn’t do.

Copyright G.Ater  2018