President Donald Trump on Thursday continued to push back on any talk of sanctions against Saudi Arabia over what happened to missing Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
“Again this took place in Turkey and to the best of our knowledge, Khashoggi is not a United States citizen, is that right? He’s a permanent resident. We don’t like it, and we don’t like it even a little bit,” he said, before adding that he didn’t want to prevent “$110 billion from being spent in this country,” referencing the U.S. arms deal with Saudi Arabia.
Trump: This thing happened in Turkey and Khashoggi isn't even a US citizen. pic.twitter.com/3poTLR22jN
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) October 11, 2018
Translated Trump: “Saudi Arabia can kill whoever it wants so long as we can profit from doing business with them!”
Funny thing, Toadpole, but the rights and protections granted in the US constitution do not limit those rights to US citizens. Similarly, the Magnitsky act, does not limit sanctions to US citizen victims. Indeed, the “Magnitsky” whom the law is named for was a Russian citizen killed in a Russian prison.
And Toadpole Toddler, the Magnisky act was invoked today for Khashoggi and you will have to at least pretend to invsestigate. Send the FBI judge vetting team.
This guy was murdered basically for writing pieces that criticized the Saudi Royal Family. This is 100% in direct opposition with everything that America (and its president) is supposed to stand for.
We’re looking for an answer, and we’re going to keep looking and we’re not going to stop looking until the instant this thing blows over. Thank you very much.
Donald Trump adores the idea that a country can be less a sovereign nation-state and more the autocratic estate of a rich and powerful family. He’s pretty big into Duterte and Putin, but this whole sham election thing? Kind of a lot of work to accomplish what you really want to do, which is wave at the little people in the countryside and say to your friends (you have a lot of friends, more friends than anyone else, you wouldn’t even believe it!): “All those people out there? Yeah, it’s pretty amazing, I own 'em”
Of course he won’t push back against Saudi Arabia.