Of course

Doesn't matter who's president, the Saudis have us by the short ones.

The Biden administration has told a US court that Mohammed bin Salman should be granted sovereign immunity in a civil case involving the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, effectively ending a last ditch attempt to hold the Saudi crown prince legally accountable for the 2018 killing.

In a filing released on late on Thursday night, the Biden administration said the crown prince’s recent promotion to the role of prime minister meant that he was “the sitting head of government and, accordingly, immune” from the lawsuit.

  Guardian

Isn't that handy. I hope the DOJ doesn't take the same approach with Trump.

“However, the doctrine of head of state immunity is well established in customary international law and has been consistently recognized in longstanding executive branch practice as a status-based determination that does not reflect a judgment on the underlying conduct at issue in the litigation,” it said.

Oh, but it does reflect exactly that. You can literally get away with murder.

A legal observer close to the matter said it has always been understood that, even though the US government is not a party to the civil claim, its views would be decisive, and that the judge in the matter would very likely proceed with the case or dismiss it depending on the US government’s position.

[...]

Dawn, a pro-democracy advocacy group that was founded by the murdered Washington Post columnist, was a co-plaintiff in the case, which alleged that Prince Mohammed and other Saudi officials acted in a “conspiracy and with premeditation” when Saudi agents kidnapped, bound, drugged, tortured and killed Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018.

Sarah Leah Whitson, Dawn’s executive director, issued a scathing rebuke of the administration in the wake of its decision, calling it an “unnecessary, elective action that will serve only to undermine the most important action for accountability for Khashoggi’s heinous murder”.

“It’s beyond ironic that President Biden has single-handedly assured [Mohammed bin Salman] can escape accountability when it was President Biden who promised the American people he would do everything to hold him accountable. Not even the Trump administration did this,” she said.

[...]

One lawyer close to the matter said the decision was “disastrous for accountability, for human rights, for impunity”.

[...]

If the civil case is allowed to proceed – which is unlikely – it would allow Cengiz and Dawn to seek a deposition of the crown prince. If Prince Mohammed lost the case, he could be liable for damages.

“It would mean that any time he comes to the US – if he were to be found guilty – they would be able to serve notice and issue a fine. It would be humiliating and would effectively mean he could not travel to the US again,” said Bruce Riedel, a former CIA analyst and fellow at Brookings.

It is unlikely any of this will now come to pass.

“The pariah is now above the law,” Riedel said.

Aren't they all?

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

This is what happens when you have phony principles

A US judge has asked the Biden administration to weigh in on whether Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, should be granted sovereign immunity in a civil case brought against him in the US by Hatice Cengiz, the fiancee of Jamal Khashoggi, the journalist who was killed by Saudi agents in 2018.

John Bates, a district court judge, gave the US government until 1 August to declare its interests in the civil case or give the court notice that it has no view on the matter.

The administration’s decision could have a profound effect on the civil case and comes as Joe Biden is facing criticism for abandoning a campaign promise to turn Saudi Arabia into a “pariah”.

The US president is due to meet the heir apparent to the Saudi throne later this month when he makes his first trip to Riyadh since entering the White House.

  Guardian

And he should never have said that. He knew the US is bound to Saudi Arabia by the decisions of our real rulers - huge corporations.

While Saudi Arabia said it held a trial against the hit squad responsible for the grisly murder, the proceeding was widely condemned as a sham, and some of the most senior members of the team have been sighted in a state security compound in Riyadh.

Other possible avenues of justice have been stymied for political reasons. A Turkish prosecutor in March ended a long-running trial in absentia against Khashoggi’s killers, in a move that was seen as part of the Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s attempts to improve relations with Prince Mohammed.

The Saudi prince has taken responsibility for the murder on behalf of the Saudi government but has denied any personal involvement in planning the assassination.

This business of "taking responsibility" by political players is such bullshit. You haven't taken responsibility for something until you correct it or pay a price for it.

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

Some things never change

So the Saudis still own us.

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

Intel report on Khashoggi assassination

An unclassified intel report detailing the heinous assassination of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi has just been released by the Biden administration—and it points the finger directly at Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

“We assess that Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman approved an operation in Istanbul, Turkey to capture or kill Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi,” the four-page report, released on Friday, said. “We base this assessment on the Crown Prince’s control of decision making in the Kingdom since 2017, the direct involvement of a key adviser and members of Muhammad bin Salman's protective detail in the operation, and the Crown Prince’s support for using violent measures to silence dissidents abroad, including Khashoggi.”

  Yahoo

So, actually, conjecture based on circumstantial evidence. I'm not saying I don't believe the conclusion; I'm saying it doesn't have any more weight than original conjecture at the time of the assassination, so the Saudis can continue to deny it and nobody can do anything about it. Just like Trump can keep claiming he won the election.

Joe Biden reportedly called the Saudi king before the report went public.  I'd like to have a true transcript of that call.

The report, released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence after previously being held back by the Trump administration, is based on a CIA report that concluded in November 2018 that the Saudi crown prince ordered the killing. Biden called Saudi Arabia’s King Salman late Thursday but the White House readout did not mention the report, instead saying the two discussed continued work on “mutual issues of concern.”

[...]

On Friday, Secretary of State Tony Blinken announced the Biden administration’s “Khashoggi Ban” that has already imposed visa restrictions on 76 Saudi individuals.

“The Khashoggi Ban allows the State Department to impose visa restrictions on individuals who, acting on behalf of a foreign government, are believed to have been directly engaged in serious, extraterritorial counter-dissident activities, including those that suppress, harass, surveil, threaten, or harm journalists, activists, or other persons perceived to be dissidents for their work, or who engage in such activities with respect to the families or other close associates of such persons,” he said in a statement.

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

More Woodward book leakage

President Donald Trump bragged that he protected Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman after the assassination and dismembering of the Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi in October 2018.

"I saved his ass," Trump had said amid the US outcry over Khashoggi's killing, according to Bob Woodward's new book. "I was able to get Congress to leave him alone. I was able to get them to stop."

  Business Insider

And he thought that would impress Woodward in a positive way? Dear God.

Trump repeatedly used executive power to block or bypass congressional efforts to cut ties with Riyadh after Khashoggi's murder.

[...]

The president also bypassed Congress to push through an arms sale of roughly $8 billion to the Saudis and the United Arab Emirates, and he later vetoed several resolutions blocking the sale.

More recently, Trump has moved to circumvent a decades-old arms-control pact in order to sell weaponized drones to the Saudis and to other countries in the region, sparking backlash from Democrats and Republicans in Congress.

[...]

Woodward wrote that Trump called him on January 22 shortly after attending the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. During the conversation, Woodward pressed the president about Khashoggi's gruesome murder.

Khashoggi, 59, a longtime Washington Post columnist known for his criticism of the Saudi kingdom, was assassinated and dismembered at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on October 2, 2018, after going there to get paperwork for his upcoming marriage.

The CIA concluded a little over a month later that Prince Mohammed, also known as MBS, had personally ordered Khashoggi's murder.

"The people at the Post are upset about the Khashoggi killing," Woodward told Trump on January 22, his book says.

[...]

"Yeah, but Iran is killing 36 people a day, so —" Trump began, before Woodward redirected the conversation and continued to press Trump about MBS's role in ordering Khashoggi's killing.

[...]

The president also told Woodward he didn't believe that MBS ordered Khashoggi's murder, though the US and other foreign intelligence services concluded that he did order the attack.

[...]

"He will always say that he didn't do it," Trump said of MBS. "He says that to everybody, and frankly I'm happy that he says that. But he will say that to you, he will say that to Congress, and he will say that to everybody. He's never said he did it."

"Do you believe that he did it?" Woodward asked.

"No, he says that he didn't do it," Trump replied.

"I know, but do you really believe —" Woodward said before Trump cut him off.

"He says very strongly that he didn't do it," Trump said. "Bob, they spent $400 billion over a fairly short period of time."

He added: "And you know, they're in the Middle East. You know, they're big. Because of their religious monuments, you know, they have the real power. They have the oil, but they also have the great monuments for religion. You know that, right? For that religion.

Nutso.

"They wouldn't last a week if we're not there, and they know it," he said.

Sure.

UPDATE:

Dear god.

Also, I'm sure most women can understand, since it would take them less than a second after meeting Trump to know that it's definitely NOT going to happen.

Impeach the motherfucker

Whht's hidden in that code-word server?

[N]o moment in U.S.-Saudi relations was more fraught than a phone call that took place almost exactly one year ago, between the 45th president and the kingdom’s de facto day-to-day ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. For nearly two years, Trump and his son-in-law-turned-Middle-East-point-man Jared Kushner had coddled and flattered the young Saudi strongman (and vice versa), trading late night messages over Kushner’s protected app and critical intelligence.

[...]

On October 2, 2018, something went terribly, terribly wrong. Jamal Khashoggi was both a Saudi dissident high on MBS’ “enemies list,” and an American journalist — granted U.S. residency and writing a column for the Washington Post, a newspaper that Trump frequently tars an “enemy of the people.” The columnist, needing official paperwork, had been lured to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul — and then never came out. Turkish intelligence filled in the gory and beyond-shocking details — that a Saudi hit team planted itself inside the government outpost, suffocating Khashoggi and somehow disposing of his body, possibly with the help of a bone saw.

[...]

[Khashoggi's] body has still not been found, no one has been convicted and questions continue to linger over the crown prince’s culpability.

[...]

An angry world wanted answers, and Trump was certainly in a position to ask the tough questions when he spoke on the phone to MBS. [...] Instead — as we are just learning now, thanks to some skilled reporting from CNN — whatever happened in that phone call was the subject of elaborate effort to shield what was really talked about. In other words, a cover-up.

“In the case of Trump’s call with bin Salman, officials who ordinarily would have been given access to a rough transcript of the conversation never saw one, according to one of the sources,” CNN reported last Friday. “Instead, a transcript was never circulated at all, which the source said was highly unusual, particularly after a high-profile conversation.”

[...]

Much like Trump’s now-infamous July phone call with the Ukrainian president — now at the center of the impeachment inquiry that’s rocked the nation — officials told CNN the secrecy seemed less a matter of classified information and more an effort to avoid leaks and political embarrassment.

[...]

There are many reasons why citizens need to know what happened on this call. For one thing, even as the whereabouts of Khashoggi’s dismembered remains are still unknown, the Trump administration continues to provide the Saudi dictatorship with expensive weapons, nuclear secrets, bombs to slaughter civilians in Yemen and now a vow to defend it against Iran in what could quickly become the worst conflict since World War II.

[...]

But there are also disturbing questions about America’s own conduct. In Kushner’s frequent, sometimes off-the-books late night bull sessions with MBS, did Trump’s son-in-law offer valuable U.S. intelligence, such as intercepted conversations, that helped the crown prince to round up and torture dissidents? Did U.S. government officials have advance knowledge of the Saudi plot against Khashoggi, and if so why was [the] Washington-based journalist not warned? Did Trump give MBS and his goons a free pass for slaughtering Khashoggi — just like the Washington Post reported that the president gave top Russians a free pass for interfering in the 2016 election?

[...]

Shortly after Trump secured the GOP nomination in the summer of 2016, Donald Trump Jr. met in Trump Tower with a longtime adviser to the Saudis and their closest ally, the United Arab Emirates, George Nader, as well as the Israeli head of an intelligence firm specializing in “psy-ops.” Nader, according to the New York Times, told the junior Trump “that the princes who led Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were eager to help his father win election as president.” The participants insist nothing came of this, although the firm later gave a presentation of work it may or may not have done to elect Trump and Nader later gave the firm’s owner a check for as much as $2 million.

[...]

In the fateful year of 2001, the Saudi government paid $4.5 million to buy the entire 45th floor of Trump Tower, one of a number of business dealings with the New Yorker. “They spend $40 million, $50 million,” Trump told a 2015 campaign rally in Alabama. "Am I supposed to dislike them? I like them very much.” Emolumentally, the Saudis spent several hundred thousands dollars at Trump’s D.C. hotel after he was elected.

[...]

[Trump] made Saudi Arabia the destination for his first international trip as president (traditionally it’s Canada) and stunned many in his own administration when he sided with the Saudis in a spat against Qatar, long-time host of a key American military base.

[...]

He authorized the sale of sensitive nuclear technology to the regime, vetoed legislation to end American aid for the bloody Saudi military, and sold arms to their monarchy over the objections of Congress.

[...]

MBS reportedly bragged to his associates in UAE that [Jared] Kushner was “in his pocket” and eyebrows were raised when the Saudi prince launched his roundup of dissidents just a week after Trump’s son-in-law visited the kingdom in fall 2017.

[...]

In the end, Team Trump’s warped dealings with Ukraine, Russia and Saudi Arabia all point toward the same high crimes and misdemeanors of the 45th presidency — a willingness to conduct life-and-death foreign policy not over what’s good for the American people but what’s good for Trump’s political prospects, his bankbook, or his fragile ego.

[...]

Both the revelation of a concerted White House effort to conceal the substance of Trump’s talks with MBS and King Salman and the added power and weight of a House impeachment inquiry make it imperative for investigators to learn what the president and his son-in-law knew about a cold-blooded murder [of Jamal Khashoggi], and when they knew it.

  Philadelphia Inquirer

MBS didn't like what Khashoggi wrote, Trump hates the Washington Post, for whom Khashoggi was writing, and he owes his soul to the Saudis. I can see them working together.

Offering us a separate reality

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

Secretary Pompous makes us laugh

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Wednesday that the US will continue to work to identify those responsible for the murder of Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi and "hold them accountable".

  alJazeera

Pretty much everybody else solved that mystery a long time ago.

Pompeo said, adding under questioning that would apply to "anyone" no matter how high up in the Saudi government.

[...]

Pompeo said he was aware of the details of Khashoggi's murder at the time of his meeting with the crown prince and that he raised US concerns about it with him at the time. The Trump administration has sanctioned 17 Saudis in connection with the killing, he said.

[...]

On Wednesday, Pompeo also appeared before the House Foreign Operations Appropriations Subcommittee which provides funding for US international aid including $3.3bn for Israel. The secretary of state recently returned from a trip to Kuwait, Lebanon and Israel.

During that hearing, Pompeo declined to answer questions about the Trump administration's efforts to develop a peace proposal for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Because that's Jared's job. And because there aren't any.

"Given the demographics of the West Bank and Gaza, and given Israel's long-standing Democratic principles, wouldn't you agree that a two-state solution is the best way for most people, for both people to co-exist peacefully and with dignity?" Congresswoman Nita Lowey, chair of the House Foreign Operations Appropriations Subcommittee, asked Pompeo.

"You will permit me to demur again," Pompeo said. "You will see the administration's vision and then ultimately it will be the decision of the peoples of those two lands about how it is they will come together and what the contours of that will look like."

The administration has a vision? Visions of dollars flowing into their personal bank accounts. That's this administration's vision.

US President Donald Trump met Netanyahu at the White House on Monday where the US president recognised Israeli control of the Golan Heights, Syrian territory seized in the 1967 Six Day War. The move prompted condemnation from Arab nations.

The vision for Israel is whatever Netanyahu wants, so ultimately, no Palestine whatsoever. And, preferably, no Arabs.

Pompeo later told members of Congress that Trump's decision on the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights "was the right thing to do".

"We believe this increases the likelihood that we get a resolution between Israel and the Palestinians," Pompeo said.

Like recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and moving the US embassy there did, eh?

He added that the move would help the peace process by bringing "clarity" and "certainty" about the US position on a "complex" situation.

It was quite clear already.

Palestinians cut off ties with the US after Trump unilaterally recognised Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and moved the US embassy to the city. Trump cut off funds for United Nations aid to Gaza and international assistance to the West Bank, and ordered the closure of a Palestinian representative office in Washington, DC.

[...]

Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law, travelled to the Middle East in February to promote the economic portion of the administration's plan involving investment in the besieged Gaza Strip. Asked when the Trump administration plan would be forthcoming, Pompeo was unable to offer a timeframe.

"I am not trying to evade. I don't know precisely when and how we will present this. We have been working on it a while. We want to make sure we have as complete and as effective, as good as we know how to do. We get there we will unveil it," Pompeo said.

Whatever you say, Pompous.

I'm leaning with the trout man here

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

Speaking of conspiracy theories

The prurient details of this scandal surrounding Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, and foibles of a man worth $160 billion (before his looming divorce, anyway) sending sexts just like every horny 17-year-old, could fuel TV cable news and newspaper headlines for weeks — and it probably will.

But what if I told you that Bezos’s smartphone self-portrait gallery is arguably the least sexy thing (heh) about this entire affair? That a billionaire’s racy texts are merely the tip of a global iceberg that — as Bezos himself darkly hinted in his shocking Medium post exposing his alleged blackmail by the publishers of the National Enquirer — potentially involves the oil billions of Saudi Arabia and the president of the United States?

  Will Bunch

Pretty damned sure it involves the president of the United States.

Or that it could tie into shadowy international hacking operations, and maybe even the high-profile murder of a U.S.-based journalist?

And what if I told you something else: That the Bezos scandal is ripping away the curtain on a secret world that’s been hiding in plain sight: That a nation founded in the ideals of democracy has been increasingly fallen prey to a new dystopian regime that melds the new 21st century dark arts of illegal hacking and media manipulation with the oldest tricks in the book: blackmail and extortion.

Media manipulation isn't new, but I take his point.

In January the Amazon mogul announced that he and his longtime wife MacKenzie are divorcing, hours ahead of a report in the National Enquirer laden with the content of racy texts between the billionaire and his mistress. On Thursday, Bezos — who’d hired a well-known investigator to find out how the supermarket tabloid got his private communications — took to Medium with a post accusing the Enquirer’s parent company, AMI, whose CEO is David Pecker, of threatening to publish embarrassing photos of Bezos and his lover if he didn’t drop his investigation and state (falsely, Bezos asserts) that its coverage was not politically motivated.

[...]

The [Bezos-owned] Washington Post — where the slain [journalist Jamal] Khashoggi was a beloved colleague and where the political murder of a columnist was seen as a threat against all journalism — vowed to stay on the story until the truth was revealed. In mid-December, the Post memorialized Khashoggi in a full-page ad and its publisher Fred Ryan said its reporters would push the Saudi regime “until meaningful action is taken.”

[...]

Only now is the world figuring out that making up stories to sell papers may have been the least of the sins committed by the [AMI-owned National] Enquirer, which was propped up in its 1950s’ infancy by Mafia money and which later forged a close relationship with Roy Cohn, the notorious New York fixer attorney who took an up-and-coming New York developer named Donald Trump under his wing while fighting off allegations including (wait for it) extortion and blackmail.

[...]

[David] Pecker’s AMI reached a deal with federal prosecutors in Manhattan to avoid prosecution and tell all about how it aided Trump by working with Trump’s legal fixer, Michael Cohen, to pay Trump’s mistress Karen McDougal $150,000 in a scheme to keep her out of the news right before the November 2016 election [...] paying off a doorman with a salacious Trump rumor [about an illegitimate child] to publishing false stories that his opponent Hillary Clinton was gravely ill.

[...]

[W]hile the Enquirer was aiding and protecting Trump it was also — according to reports — holding onto a remarkable source of protection: a safe containing damaging stories about the president it had buried over the years.

[...]

What the public didn’t know in the early months of Trump’s presidency was that Donald Trump Jr. had secretly met in Trump Tower in early August 2016 with a longtime emissary for the Saudis and its closest ally, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), George Nader, and two figures from the world of intelligence: Erik Prince, founder of the notorious firm known as Blackwater, and an ex-Israeli intelligence agent named Joel Zamel.

Nader, according to the New York Times, said the Saudis and the UAE wanted to help Trump win the election. Zamel proposed a covert social media campaign.

[...]

In July 2017, the president invited his good friend David Pecker to the White House and — after chatting with Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, who was developing close ties with [Saudi prince Mohammed bin Salman] MBS — the two men had dinner with Kacy Grine, a French businessman who’s a longtime adviser to MBS. Two months later, Pecker went to Saudi Arabia and met personally with MBS and Grine and pitched business opportunities.

About six months later, shoppers in U.S. supermarkets, Walmart and other retailers might have been shocked to see a colorful piece of pro-Saudi propaganda at the checkout.

The magazine — just ahead of an MBS visit to America where he met Trump, Pecker (and, ironically, Bezos) and other luminaries — was of course published by AMI.

[...]

At the same time, Trump fumed over the investigative journalism of the Bezos-owned Washington Post. Even though Bezos is by all accounts a hands-off owner with no say in the Post’s journalism, Trump at one point reportedly demanded that the U.S. Postal Service hike the rates charged Amazon.

Which brings us to Oct. 2, 2018, the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, and the Post’s vow to get to the bottom of it. Three months later came the salacious Enquirer report on Bezos.

[...]

Bezos didn’t take the news lying down. He hired a well-known investigator, Gavin de Becker, to launch a detailed investigation of how the Enquirer obtained his private text messages. Early reports suggested a focus on the brother of Bezos’s paramour, Michael Sanchez, who is a political supporter of Trump and a friend of Trump-Russia scandal figures such as Carter Page and (wait for it … again) Roger Stone.

Okay, I need to stop right there. Conspiracy? Hell yes. How did Bezos meet this woman whose borther is a friend of Roger Stone? Honey trap perhaps?

Bezos, in his Medium post, noted some of the AMI-Trump-Saudi history chronicled in this column. He said that Trump has “wrongly concluded” that Bezos is an enemy and that the Post’s Khashoggi journalism is “highly unpopular in some circles.” He added: “For reasons still to be better understood, the Saudi angle seems to hit a particularly sensitive nerve” with AMI, which then allegedly threatened Bezos, verbally and then (incredibly) by email, with publication of the photos.

[...]

In December, a Saudi dissident who lives in Canada and was close friends with the murdered Khashoggi filed a lawsuit alleging that an Israeli software company called the NSO Group — which according to reports sold its spyware program called Pegasus to Saudi Arabia for $55 million — had used its technology to hack into his smartphone and his communications with Khashoggi. Other dissidents have made similar allegations — that the Saudis have used phone hacking to spy on them.

[...]

Which brings us back to the question of why AMI was demanding not only that Bezos drop its investigation of the hacking but to state that the probe found no political motivation behind its article on the Amazon chief.

[...]

Remember, AMI signed an agreement with federal prosecutors to avoid prosecution in the Michael Cohen-Karen McDougal plot that included a promise to refrain from criminal activity for three years or else the deal was off and AMI, and presumably Pecker, could be charged in the Cohen case. Why, then, would they take the insane risk of opening that can of worms with a threat to Bezos that could meet the legal definition of blackmail? They must be hiding something very bad.

[...]

Meanwhile, Trump is ignoring a congressionally mandated deadline to find if the Saudis violated human rights in Khashoggi’s murder. And a top Saudi official just warned that linking MBS to Khashoggi’s murder would be crossing “a red line.”

[...]

We know that what we’re experiencing now is not true democracy. And with the Bezos and Khashoggi revelations, it’s totally fair to ask: Are we increasingly ruled by blackmail and extortion?

That's not new either. J. Edgar Hoover, anyone? House UnAmerican Committee? Spiro Agnew? New York "boodle" Board? San Francisco post 1900 earthquake? San Francisco & LA Chinatowns? Huey Long in Louisiana? Chicago and New Jersey pretty much all the time? To name a few big ones. "Increasingly"? I don't know. But undoubtedly it hasn't been so pervasive in an administration as in this one.

[I]s Trump’s former bodyguard Keith Schiller getting $15,000 a month from the Republican National Committee for his do-little-or-do-nothing job, or because he knows too many secrets? What are we to make of the fact that Michael Cohen and Roger Stone knew all about a hidden sex-abuse scandal involving then-New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman — and that the New York AG’s office didn’t investigate the Trump Foundation until after Schneiderman was forced out? Why do so many GOP senators who once brutally criticized Trump now support him?

[...]

What if America’s new amateur blackmail regime is being blackmailed by a professional: Russia’s Vladimir Putin? Much like the government’s kowtowing to the Saudis and MBS, there is too much about the administration’s bending to Russia’s will.

[...]

Shocking as it may seem, it’s not unreasonable to now ask: Who are the world’s leaders blackmailing, and who is blackmailing them?

As Sarah Kendzior always says, the world is being run by an international crime syndicate.

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

Lying and/or incompetent

He's the goddamn Chief of Staff.  He should know.

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

Trump missed the deadline for Khashoggi report

But is there any enforcement authorization in the Act?  Sharing blame for a cover up is nothing to the Trump administration.  And a little nod to Putin's desires never hurt.

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

Thugs of a feather

Senior American officials were worried. Since the early months of the Trump administration, Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and Middle East adviser, had been having private, informal conversations with Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the favorite son of Saudi Arabia’s king.

Given Mr. Kushner’s political inexperience, the private exchanges could make him susceptible to Saudi manipulation, said three former senior American officials. In an effort to tighten practices at the White House, a new chief of staff tried to reimpose longstanding procedures stipulating that National Security Council staff members should participate in all calls with foreign leaders.

But even with the restrictions in place, Mr. Kushner, 37, and Prince Mohammed, 33, kept chatting, according to three former White House officials and two others briefed by the Saudi royal court. In fact, they said, the two men were on a first-name basis, calling each other Jared and Mohammed in text messages and phone calls.

[...]

As the killing [of journalist Jamal Khashoggi] set off a firestorm around the world and American intelligence agencies concluded that it was ordered by Prince Mohammed, Mr. Kushner became the prince’s most important defender inside the White House, people familiar with its internal deliberations say.

[...]

But the ties between Mr. Kushner and Prince Mohammed did not happen on their own. The prince and his advisers, eager to enlist American support for his hawkish policies in the region and for his own consolidation of power, cultivated the relationship with Mr. Kushner for more than two years, according to documents, emails and text messages reviewed by The New York Times.

A delegation of Saudis close to the prince visited the United States as early as the month Mr. Trump was elected, the documents show, and brought back a report identifying Mr. Kushner as a crucial focal point in the courtship of the new administration. He brought to the job scant knowledge about the region, a transactional mind-set and an intense focus on reaching a deal with the Palestinians that met Israel’s demands, the delegation noted.

[...]

“The inner circle is predominantly deal makers who lack familiarity with political customs and deep institutions, and they support Jared Kushner,” the Saudi delegation wrote of the incoming administration in a slide presentation obtained by the Lebanese newspaper Al Akhbar, which provided it to The Times.

[...]

The courtship of Mr. Kushner appears to have worked.

[...]

Bending protocol, Mr. Kushner arranged for Prince Mohammed, often referred to by his initials as M.B.S., to receive the kind of treatment usually reserved for heads of state, with photographs and news media coverage, according to a person involved in the arrangements.

[...]

“The relationship between Jared Kushner and Mohammed bin Salman constitutes the foundation of the Trump policy not just toward Saudi Arabia but toward the region,” said Martin Indyk, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a former Middle East envoy. The administration’s reliance on the Saudis in the peace process, its support for the kingdom’s feud with Qatar, an American ally, and its backing of the Saudi-led intervention in Yemen, he said, all grew out of “that bromance.”

[...]

Before the 2016 presidential race, Mr. Kushner’s most extensive exposure to the Middle East was through Israel. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was a Kushner family friend, and the Kushners had contributed heavily to Israeli nonprofits supporting Jewish settlements in the Palestinian territories of the West Bank.

But the Arab rulers of the oil-rich Persian Gulf mainly figured in Mr. Kushner’s life as investors in American real estate, the Kushner family business.

[...]

Top aides to Saudi Arabia’s Prince Mohammed also met with Mr. Kushner on a trip to New York in November 2016, after the election.

The Saudi team included Musaad al-Aiban, a cabinet minister involved in economic planning and national security, and Khaled al-Falih, installed by the prince as minister of energy and chairman of the state oil company, according to executives who met with them and a person who was briefed on the meetings.

[...]

The delegation made special note of what it characterized as Mr. Kushner’s ignorance of Saudi Arabia.

“Kushner made clear his lack of familiarity with the history of Saudi-American relations and he asked about its support for terrorism,” the team noted in the slide presentation prepared for Riyadh. “After the discussion, he expressed his satisfaction with what was explained about the Saudi role in fighting terrorism” and what the Saudis said was their international leadership in fighting Islamist extremism.

Mr. Kushner, the Saudi report said, also questioned the delegation’s motives, asking whether the group had always been interested in working with Mr. Trump. As a candidate, Mr. Trump had promised to ban Muslim immigrants from entering the United States and had singled out Saudi Arabia as a dangerous influence.

“Kushner wondered about Saudi Arabia’s desire for partnership and whether it came from opportunity or worry, and he wondered as well if it was specific to this American administration or whether it was presented to Hillary Clinton (for example: women driving),” read another slide, next to a photograph of Mr. Kushner.

[...]

“The Palestinian issue first: there is still no clear plan for the American administration toward the Middle East,” the delegation wrote, “except that the central interest is finding a historic solution to support the stability of Israel and solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”

To cultivate ties with the Trump team, the Saudis had prepared a long list of initiatives that they said would help Mr. Trump deliver for his supporters.

[...]

[One] Saudi proposal outlined what the Trump administration later called “an Arab NATO.” In their presentation, the Saudis described it as an Islamic military coalition of tens of thousands of troops “ready when the president-elect wishes to deploy them.”

[...]

Few of the Saudi promises have amounted to much. The effectiveness of the counterterrorism center in Riyadh remains doubtful. After offering $50 billion in new weapons contracts, the Saudis have signed only letters of interest or intent without any firm deals. After proposing to marshal up to $100 billion in investments in American infrastructure, the Saudis have announced an investment of only $20 billion.

[...]

Within weeks of Mr. Trump’s move into the White House, Mr. Kushner had embraced the delegation’s proposal for the president to visit Riyadh, convinced by then that the alliance with Saudi Arabia would be crucial in his plans for the region, according to a person who discussed it with Mr. Kushner and a second person familiar with his plans.

The secretary of state at the time, Rex W. Tillerson, opposed the idea. It would link the administration too closely to Riyadh, these people said, giving up flexibility and leverage. Mr. Trump initially saw little benefit either, according to a person involved in his deliberations.

But by the time of the inauguration Mr. Kushner was already arguing that under the influence of Prince Mohammed, Saudi Arabia could play a pivotal role in advancing a Middle East peace deal, according to three people familiar with his thinking. That would be the president’s legacy, Mr. Kushner argued, according to a person involved in the discussions.

[...]

It was around the time of the White House visit in March 2017 that senior officials in the State Department and the Pentagon began to worry about the one-on-one communications between Prince Mohammed — who is known to favor the online messaging service WhatsApp — and Mr. Kushner. “There was a risk the Saudis were playing him,” one former White House official said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

Two later face-to-face encounters with Mr. Kushner preceded key turning points in Prince Mohammed’s consolidation of power.

Shortly after Mr. Kushner visited Riyadh with the president in May 2017, Prince Mohammed orchestrated the ouster of his older cousin, Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, removing him from control of the Saudi Interior Ministry and replacing him as crown prince. Prince Mohammed also announced a Saudi-led blockade of its neighbor and rival Qatar, the host of a major American air base.

And days after Mr. Kushner made an unannounced visit to Riyadh in the fall of 2017, the crown prince summarily detained about 200 wealthy Saudis, including several of his royal cousins, in a Ritz-Carlton hotel in Riyadh.

After each play for power, President Trump publicly praised Prince Mohammed.

[...]

Inside the White House, Mr. Kushner has continued to argue that the president needs to stand by Prince Mohammed because he remains essential to the administration’s broader Middle East strategy, according to people familiar with the deliberations.

Whether Prince Mohammed can fulfill that role, however, remains to be seen. His initial approaches to the Palestinians were rejected by their leaders, and their resistance stiffened after the Trump administration recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital without waiting for a negotiated agreement on the city’s status.

Now the prince’s father, King Salman, 82, who is still the official head of state, has appeared to resist Mr. Kushner’s Middle East peace plans as well.

“The Palestinian issue will remain our primary issue,” the king declared in a speech last month, “until the Palestinian people receive all of their legal rights.”

[...]

Since the uproar over Mr. Khashoggi’s killing, the Trump administration has acknowledged only one conversation between Mr. Kushner and Prince Mohammed: an Oct. 10 telephone call joined by John R. Bolton, the national security adviser. The Americans “asked for more details and for the Saudi government to be transparent in the investigation process,” the White House said in a statement.

But American officials and a Saudi briefed on their conversations said that Mr. Kushner and Prince Mohammed have continued to chat informally. According to the Saudi, Mr. Kushner has offered the crown prince advice about how to weather the storm, urging him to resolve his conflicts around the region and avoid further embarrassments.

  NYT

I would like to know what kinds of machinations are going on now between the two since MbS' cold reception at the G20 and his obvious flirtation with Putin, leaving Trump on the sidelines.

I get the feeling that MbS and Putin are both beginning to see that Trump is unable to deliver what they were expecting of him and will be cutting off the tap.

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

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.

Gina Haspel's Khashoggi brief convinced some Senators of MbS guilt

In some of their strongest accusations to date, lawmakers said evidence presented by the U.S. spy agency overwhelmingly pointed to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s involvement in the assassination [of journalist Jamal Khashoggi].

Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) said while there was no smoking gun, there was a “smoking saw,” referring to the bone saw that investigators have said was used to dismember Khashoggi after he was killed by a team of agents from Saudi Arabia in that country’s consulate in Istanbul in October.

[...]

[He] said the United States should come down on the government in Riyahd like “a ton of bricks,” adding that he could no longer support arms sales to the Saudis as long as Mohammed was in charge.

[...]

Haspel was noticeably absent last week from an all-senators briefing with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis. Lawmakers complained that the Trump administration was depriving Congress of key information about the killing of Khashoggi, a Washington Post contributing columnist, by refusing to order Haspel to go to the Hill and explain the CIA’s assessment.

[...]

Senators put themselves in direct opposition to the White House, making clear that the evidence they heard had convinced them beyond the shadow of a doubt.

“If the Crown Prince went in front of a jury, he would be convicted in 30 minutes,” said Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), the chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations.

[...]

Haspel provided the closed briefing just days before the Senate is expected to begin debating a resolution to withdraw U.S. support for the Saudi military campaign in Yemen.

[...]

Some senators had accused the White House of barring Haspel’s participation in last week’s briefing with Pompeo and Mattis. But CIA spokesman Timothy Barrett said nobody told Haspel not to appear.

  WaPo

Sure. Who knows? But last week all reports were that the order came from the White House that she shouldn't be there.

Haspel spoke only to Senate leaders and the heads of national security committees with an interest in Saudi policy regarding Yemen and the intelligence surrounding Khashoggi’s killing, according to multiple people familiar with the plans.

[...]

Bipartisan leaders from the Foreign Relations Committee, the Armed Services Committee, the Intelligence Committee, and the Appropriations subcommittees that fund the State and Defense departments were expected to be included.

Some rank-and-file senators were furious that they were excluded from the briefing.

“I can’t even ask to be included in it because I didn’t know it was going to happen, except for reading about it in the media. That’s not the way it should be. She should have come and testified in front of all senators,” Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said. “If you have some senators who are more equal than others, that is not democratic representation.”

Surely Senator Paul, a Republican, isn't under the impression that we are living in a democracy.

Haspel’s briefing may have been designed to placate some [Republican] senators. But it is not expected to deter Senate Democrats — or the handful of Republicans who say Saudi Arabia should be rebuked — from supporting the Yemen resolution [for ending Saudi attacks that is being proposed by Senators Bernie Sanders and Mike Lee] beyond its next step, a vote expected to take place in the next few days.

Gina Haspel to testify after all

Central Intelligence Agency Director Gina Haspel will brief Senate leaders Tuesday morning on what the spy agency knows about Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s death at the hands of Saudi operatives, people familiar with the matter said.

Ms. Haspel’s planned briefing follows criticism that the Trump administration received from several lawmakers last week after she failed to join an earlier briefing on Saudi policy conducted by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis.

  WSJ

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

Impeach the bastard

Trump is the biggest threat to the United States that exists. And that is not hyperbole.

The White House is preventing the CIA director, Gina Haspel, or any other intelligence official from briefing the Senate on the murder of Saudi dissident and Washington Post columnist, Jamal Khashoggi.

The secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, and the defence secretary, James Mattis, are due to give a briefing on US relations with Saudi Arabia to the entire Senate behind closed doors on Wednesday, ahead of a vote that could cut off US support for Riyadh’s military campaign in Yemen.

On a national security issue of such importance, it would be customary for a senior intelligence official to take part. On this occasion, the absence of the intelligence community is all the more glaring, as Haspel travelled to Istanbul to hear audio tapes of Khashoggi’s murder provided by Turkish intelligence, and then briefed Donald Trump.

Officials made it clear that the decision for Haspel not to appear in front of the committee came from the White House.

[...]

[T]he administration is increasingly nervous that the Senate will rebel against its policy of maintaining support for Riyadh and Prince Mohammed, asserting its powers under the War Powers Resolution.

As of Tuesday, however, the Senate was told by the administration to expect only Pompeo and Mattis at the Wednesday briefing. The White House did not respond to a query on the absence of an intelligence official.

“There is always an intel person there for a briefing like this,” a Senate staffer told the Guardian. “It is totally unprecedented and should be interpreted as nothing less than the Trump administration trying to silence the intelligence community.”

  The Guardian

And to do the bidding of Muhammed bin Salman, putting Saudi Arabia's interests above that of the US. Is there also some information that Trump and Kushner actively aided and abetted bin Salman in the murder of Khashoggi? They're certainly giving him cover.

The timing of the vote on the Saudi resolution is unclear. Senator [Bernie] Sanders has said there is support for holding it this week. The Republican majority leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, can try to postpone it, but cannot put it off indefinitely, as any measure under the War Powers Resolution has privileged status and cannot be stopped from going to the Senate floor for a vote.

UPDATE 12/3: After backlash, Haspel will speak to the Senate leaders now.

The Saudi deals that are really driving Trump's defense of MBS

They're not any deal with America in mind.

Unlike other presidents, President Trump did not divest himself of his business holdings before entering the White House, nor has he since. As a result, he stands to benefit personally from the Indonesia project, whose construction now appears to rely on a formal agreement with a firm of which the Saudi Arabian government owns more than a third.

[...]

Three weeks before journalist Jamal Khashoggi disappeared after entering the Saudi general consul in Istanbul, the Trump Organization’s business partner in Indonesia inked an agreement with a construction firm in which the Saudi government owns a large stake. The agreement advances plans for the two firms to work together on an Indonesian development that will include Trump-branded elements.

[...]

While reports of the agreement do not mention the Trump Organization by name, POSCO E&C will reportedly build an 18-hole golf course and six-star hotel for the project, and among the parts of the developments that will bear the Trump name are an 18-hole golf course and a six-star hotel. Additionally, the report of the signed agreement references an MOU signed in November of last year, which is when the MOU for the Trump project was signed.

[...]

Saudi Arabia purchased a 38% stake in POSCO E&C through its Public Investment Fund in 2015. The South Korean government also owns a percentage of the company. And though the Trump Organization isn’t developing the project itself, it has licensed the Trump name, and the company will manage parts of the development, resulting in personal income for the president.

[...]

An official with the Saudi-tied firm also said they expect to be involved in the development of a different Trump-branded project in the future.

[...]

“In addition to the new town development project in LIDO, we expect to receive orders for the Bali Trump Resort Project,” a POSCO E&C official said.

  CREW

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

Just what proof - if any - does the CIA have on bin Salman?

Will we ever know?  And does Trump know?

According to Turkish newspaper Hürriyet Daily News, the CIA has a recording in which Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman can be heard giving the order to “silence Jamal Khashoggi as soon as possible.” The claim has not yet been independently verified. Hürriyet columnist Abdulkadir Selvi, who broke the news of the first recording capturing Khashoggi’s death inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, reports that the CIA was listening in on the call between the crown prince and his brother, Khaled bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the U.S.

  Daily Beast

Maybe Adam Schiff will be subpoenaing said tapes.

Maybe it's time for the CIA to stop being coy about this, and release what proof they have.

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