Tuesday, December 4, 2018

Gina Haspel's briefing - Part 2

Something prompted Lindsey Graham to be honest about how things work in DC.
In remarks after a briefing from CIA Director Gina Haspel, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) and Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) suggested there is no plausible way that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman didn’t order the killing of Khashoggi, a Washington Post contributing columnist, and said that the evidence is overwhelming.

[...]

Graham said Tuesday that you’d have to be “willfully blind” to not know Mohammed was responsible — a clear rebuke of Trump’s argument that this whole thing resides in some kind of gray area.

[...]

The senator said there was indeed a “smoking saw” — a reference to the reported bonesaw that was brought to dismember Khashoggi — and that Pompeo was being a “good soldier” by toeing the administration’s line.

[...]

“If they were in a Democratic administration,” Graham said of Pompeo and Mattis, “I would be all over them for being in the pocket of Saudi Arabia.”

  WaPo
Precisely. So would that be bullshit, or is it bullshit that the Republican administration is not?
[Republican Senator Bob] Corker also suggested that the briefing last week, which featured Pompeo and Mattis but not Haspel, was entirely misleading.

[...]

Q: After hearing from Haspel today and Mattis/Pompeo last week, was there a difference in the message or the determination that MBS was responsible (for Khashoggi murder)?

*pause*

CORKER: “Um, difference between darkness and sunshine.”

[...]

To be clear, these senators aren’t just accusing the administration of missing the point on Khashoggi; they’re saying they feel misled and that the administration has obscured the truth.
And what do you suppose they'll do about that?
These senators are serving notice that they won’t back down without a fight — a fight that could tar both Pompeo’s and Mattis’s legacies.
Or are they just covering their asses with their constituents by sounding out and doing nothing?

We'll see when the Sanders proposal on Yemen comes to a vote.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

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