President Trump seldom waits for the facts before rendering judgment. But when it comes to the disappearance of Post contributor Jamal Khashoggi, allegedly killed by Saudi Arabia in Turkey, Trump has been strangely reticent...
...there was no outraged statement from the president, no summoning of the Saudi ambassador for an explanation. It didn’t even rise to the level of a tweet.
In the Oval Office on Tuesday, as Trump accepted U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley’s resignation, reporters asked if he had spoken to the Saudis about it.
“No, I have not, but I will be at some point,” he said.
At some point? Please do, Mr. President, if it’s not too much trouble. The Saudi journalist, who had been living in Virginia, disappeared last week, and The Post reported Saturday that Turkish officials believe he was murdered in the Istanbul consulate of our supposed ally Saudi Arabia.
“I know nothing right now,” Trump added, as if the world’s most powerful man, with a vast intelligence apparatus on retainer, were just another passive consumer of Fox News. “I know what everybody else knows — nothing.”
Does Trump really know nothing? Or does he not want to know?
If what Turkish officials told their U.S. counterparts is true — that the body of Khashoggi, a Saudi government critic, was dismembered, removed from the consulate in boxes and flown out of the country in pieces — it would show that Trump is being played for a fool by a Saudi regime he has lavished with affection.
10 Oct 2018, 6:19 am
