President Donald Trump on Friday joined the State Department and Turkish Officials who are denying that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was given an audio recording of Washington Post writer Jamal Khashoggi’s alleged death, calling the ABC New report about the topic “FAKE NEWS!”
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was never given or shown a Transcript or Video of the Saudi Consulate event. FAKE NEWS!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 19, 2018
Pompeo traveled to Saudi Arabia and Turkey this week to hold emergency discussions with officials over the disappearance and reported murder of Khashoggi.
After ABC News reported Friday that a Turkish source said Pompeo had listened to the recording, both Turkish officials and the U.S. State Department denied the report. Turkish foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told NBC that officials had “not given a voice recording to Pompeo or any other American official. Pompeo himself forcefully denied the report as well.
“I’ve heard no tape, I’ve seen no transcript,” Pompeo said, according to the Daily Beast. “This is a very serious matter that we’re working diligently on, and so to put out headlines that are factually false does no one any good.”
This week, Turkish officials said they had audio and video evidence to support their claims that Khashoggi was killed by Saudi officials after he entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul at the beginning of the month. Officials said Khashoggi made an audio recording of his own death on his Apple Watch.
The “Saudi Consulate Event.”
A euphemism that needs to live in infamy.
Why on earth would they not have shown them to Pompeo unless he specifically asked not to see them for ‘Plausible Deniability’?
Three monkeys! Hear no evil, see no evil… speak evil, all day long!
Whether or not Pompeo heard the audio is not the issue. The issue is Khashoggi, as far as we know at this point, was brutally tortured, murdered, and mutilated at the Saudi consulate. And Saudi Arabia after two weeks or so is still struggling to explain what exactly occurred. Not to mention one of the fifteen alleged attackers was just coincidentally killed in a traffic accident in Saudi Arabia.
The Turk’s have clearly bugged the Saudi consulate. But they want to undermine the Saudis, so are using the cover story (in the article) that “Officials said Khashoggi made an audio recording of his own death on his Apple Watch.”
Nah, did not happen. The Turk’s rushed off to the airport in real time, which says they were listening in real time. However, they don’t want to admit it. If they turn over the tape it reveals what happened.
Saudi Arabia and the UAE have been together flighting a battle to shore up “princely/nationalistic” rule vs. the Muslin Brotherhood. Erdogan is playing an ugly game. He is being funded by Qatar, and has troops there (holding off the Saudis) and he is going for maximum pressure to push the Saudi’s back so he can take center stage in the middle east. He will let this come out slowly, know that by its ongoing lies the Saudi’s make it impossible for them to climb down later w/o a major loss of influence.