In Never Give Up: Fighting for the America I Love, published Tuesday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Khashoggi did not deserve to die, saying his killing was “outrageous and unacceptable.” It’s horrible,” he said. However, he goes on to ridicule the “unjustified global uproar” surrounding Khashoggi’s death for several more pages, stating that Khashoggi was an “activist” rather than a journalist whose death was disproportionately “battered” by the overly sympathetic media. It was done,” he claimed.
“Just as the media have tried for years to drive a wedge between me and President Trump, in the weeks that followed,” Pompeo wrote, “they have tried to break America’s relationship with Saudi Arabia.” “The progressive left hates MBS even though he is leading the biggest cultural reform in the kingdom’s history. will prove to be a historical figure to
Khashoggi was killed on October 2, 2018, while visiting the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to obtain papers permitting his marriage to his fiancée, Hatice Cengiz. Saudi agents dismembered Khashoggi’s body inside the consulate, but his body has never been found.
In the months preceding that visit, Khashoggi had written a column for The Washington Post that sharply criticized the crown prince, who has de facto ruled Saudi Arabia and cracked down on rivals and dissidents. was.
Pompeo, who is reportedly considering a 2024 presidential election, has pushed claims in his book that Khashoggi “is on good terms with the terrorist-supporting Muslim Brotherhood,” threatening Khashoggi’s family, and It’s an accusation that both Khashoggi himself repeatedly denied when he was alive. .
“Jamal Khashoggi was never a dangerous person. It would be ridiculous to claim otherwise,” Khashoggi’s family told The Post in 2018.
As The Post reported after Khashoggi’s death, the allegations were in fact based on a phone call between President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and then-National Security Advisor John Bolton just days after Khashoggi’s disappearance. The crown prince then told Kushner and Bolton that Khashoggi was a dangerous Islamist, urging Kushner and Bolton to maintain the US-Saudi alliance.
The CIA concluded in 2018 that Muhammad ordered Khashoggi’s murder, refuting Saudi claims that the crown prince had no prior knowledge of the conspiracy. In his book, however, Pompeo — formerly his CIA director — seems to give Muhammad the benefit of the doubt against the United States’ own intelligence services.
“First, contrary to what has been reported, there is little information directly linking MBS to ordering murder,” Pompeo wrote. “Second, I have met many people who have ordered the killings. It would only mean that
In a statement Tuesday, Washington Post publisher and CEO Fred Ryan called Pompeo’s book “so outrageously misrepresenting” Khashoggi’s life and work. He said it was “shocking and disappointing” to see.
“His only sin was exposing the corruption and oppression of those in power, the work that good journalists around the world do every day,” Ryan wrote. “Jamal was dedicated to the values of free speech and the freedom of the press and upheld the highest professional standards. For this dedication, he paid the ultimate price.”
“It is shameful for Pompeo to spread a vile lie and dishonor the life and service of a brave man, and his commitment to the principles Americans hold dear, as a ploy to sell books.” Ryan added.
In November, the Biden administration ruled that Muhammad was “the sitting head of government” from a civil lawsuit filed in the United States by Khashoggi’s fiancée and a human rights group he founded.
In a letter accompanying the filing, acting State Department General Counsel Richard C. I reiterate my clear condemnation of Khashoggi’s heinous murder.” ”
Karen DeYoung, Missy Ryan, John Hudson, Souad Mekhennet, and Carol D. Leonnig contributed to this report.
