Trump’s idea of a ‘clear, transparent’ investigation is a transparent effort to clear his friends
by Tom Toles
So now, like Trump’s other autocrat bestie, Vladimir Putin, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has issued a strong denial, so it’s nearly case closed. Trump pointed out that the crown prince “totally” denied any knowledge of the likely murder of Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, which is nearly all the evidence Trump wants. Contrast this total denial with the complete silence of the possible “rogue killers” Trump conjured out of thin air. The rogue killers have conspicuously not denied anything, totally or otherwise.
Trump’s sudden concern for fact-gathering is of course just one more version of his nonstop lying. A half-century of fact-gathering on climate change has not made the slightest dent in his policy decisions on that issue. It could all be rogue storms! And his newest soundblurt of worrying about “guilty until proven innocent” is like not stopping and questioning a driver with a bloody smashed windshield in a hit-and-run accident because he hasn’t gone to trial and been convicted yet.
Khashoggi was videotaped walking into the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul and never came out again. Turkey says it knows he was murdered there. The Saudis had sent a team that looked for all the world like an enforcement squad to Istanbul just ahead of his expected arrival. The Saudis have nothing in the way of explanation other than “no knowledge.” Prima facie, perhaps?
Trump made no reference to U.S. intelligence-gathering on the subject, either because he hasn’t consulted intelligence officials, doesn’t want believe them, forgot that we have our own information-gathering, or because he distrusts anything with the word “intelligence” in it. He didn’t mention the fact that the Wall Street Journal reported that Turkey shared with U.S. officials an audio recording of what they say is the murder itself. The preponderance of evidence, in the absence of any plausible story from the Saudis, overwhelmingly points to a cold-blooded murder of a journalist, committed by the government of Saudi Arabia. Trump’s outrageous deference to the Saudi royals, including conjuring imaginary perpetrators, obviously has no relationship to a quest to find the truth, and in fact directs attention in the exact opposite direction.
But as with this probable murder, we already have a very clear idea of what Trump is doing here. He has been piling up the evidence for it since anybody knew him. Trump is a liar and will lie to protect what he perceives to be his interests. He has an obvious weakness for autocrats and autocracy. He has shown over and over, from his accusations and inferences against others, that he does not have and has never had a respect for due process. What this adds up to is dereliction of his responsibilities as chief executive and commander in chief.
Maybe a trial could establish the facts on that.
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OCU
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