“Our entire crony capitalist system, Democrat
and
Republican alike, has become a kleptocracy
approaching par with
third-world hell-holes.
This is the way a great country is raided by
its
elite.” ---- Karen McQuillan AMERICAN
THINKER.com
ABOUT THE BOOK THAT EXPOSES THEIR
BRIBE-SUCKING CRIMES
ABOUT THE BOOK THAT EXPOSES THEIR
BRIBE-SUCKING CRIMES
#1 New York Times Bestseller!
Peter Schweizer has been fighting corruption―and winning―for
years. In Throw Them All
Out, he exposed insider trading by members of Congress,
leading to the passage of the STOCK Act. In Extortion, he uncovered how politicians use
mafia-like tactics to enrich themselves. And in Clinton Cash, he revealed
the Clintons’ massive money machine and sparked an FBI investigation.
Now he explains how a new corruption has taken hold, involving
larger sums of money than ever before. Stuffing tens of thousands of dollars
into a freezer has morphed into multibillion-dollar equity deals done in the
dark corners of the world.
An American bank opening in China would be prohibited by US law
from hiring a slew of family members of top Chinese politicians. However, a
Chinese bank opening in America can hire anyone it wants. It can even invite
the friends and families of American politicians to invest in can’t-lose deals.
President Donald Trump’s children have made front pages across
the world for their dicey transactions. However, the media has barely looked
into questionable deals made by those close to Barack Obama, Joe Biden, John
Kerry, Mitch McConnell, and lesser-known politicians who have been in the game
longer.
In many parts of the world, the children of powerful political
figures go into business and profit handsomely, not necessarily because they
are good at it, but because people want to curry favor with their influential
parents. This is a relatively new phenomenon in the United States. But for
relatives of some prominent political families, we may already be talking about
hundreds of millions of dollars.
Deeply
researched and packed with shocking revelations, Secret Empires identifies
public servants who cannot be trusted and provides a path toward a more
accountable government.
1:18
Breitbart News senior contributor Peter Schweizer, author of “Secret Empires: How the American Political Class Hides Corruption and Enriches Family and Friends,” on Friday stressed the importance of 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden addressing the Ukraine issue involving him and his son, Hunter.
Schweizer said the former vice president needs to address his family’s dealings in Ukraine “front and center” rather than ignoring because polling indicates most people believe it needs further investigation.
“[Hunter Biden] has been radio silent, and I think if you look at the way the Bidens have handled this issue, it’s been to not answer any questions, which I think just raises further suspicions,” Schweizer told Fox News Channel’s “America’s Newsroom.” “Hunter Biden is somewhere, allegedly in California hiding out, and Joe Biden won’t answer any questions on this. He gets angry.”
“I think at some point they’re going to have to address these issues front and center because as it stands right now, polls indicate that most people believe this needs further investigation and needs to be looked at,” he added.
GRIFTER AND PHONY CHARITY
FOUNDATION
FRAUDSTER HILLARY
CLINTON’S LONG SERVICE TO
AMERICA’S MOST EVIL BANKSTERS
The judge found these
releases, together with the publication of Clinton’s secret speeches to Wall
Street banks, in which she pledged to be their representative, were “matters of
the highest public concern.” They “allowed the American electorate to look
behind the curtain of one of the two major political parties in the United
States during a presidential election.”
“Clinton also
failed to mention how he and Hillary cashed in after his
presidential tenure to make themselves multimillionaires, in
part by taking tens of millions in speaking fees from Wall Street bankers.”
THE BRIBES SUCKING LIVES OF HILLARY
& BILLARY
The Clintons have been a
criminal enterprise since they came to power in Arkansas. The list
of scandals they have generated is long and tawdry. Their principal
goal then and now has always been to enrich themselves. They never
once had a moral compunction about lying, cheating, selling, and stealing their
way to wealth. They are the Perons of America. They eventually
set up a "foundation" and the money kept rolling in.
Only six percent of the
billions of dollars the "Foundation" takes in goes to
charity. The rest subsidizes the lavish lifestyles of the Clintons
and their sycophants; those people who have sold their souls to rub shoulders
with unadulterated power.
VIDEO:
THE FRAUDULENT CLINTON FOUNDATION EXPOSED.
PAY-TO-PLAY FROM THE FIRST DAY!
Is it a signal
that she's back in the game because she's selling her president-ability to the
world's global billionaire crowd and laying the groundwork for more
funds? There are all kinds of ways for foreign billionaires to get
money to the U.S. without consequences, after all. What's more, it's
pretty much the biggest base of support she has, which is at least one reason
why she lost the 2016 election.
“The couple
parlayed lives supposedly spent in “public service”
into admission into the upper stratosphere of American wealth, with incomes in the top 0.1 percent bracket. The source of this vast wealth was a political machine that might well be dubbed “Clinton, Inc.” This consists essentially of a seedy money-laundering operation to ensure big business support for the Clintons’ political ambitions as well as their personal fortunes.
into admission into the upper stratosphere of American wealth, with incomes in the top 0.1 percent bracket. The source of this vast wealth was a political machine that might well be dubbed “Clinton, Inc.” This consists essentially of a seedy money-laundering operation to ensure big business support for the Clintons’ political ambitions as well as their personal fortunes.
The basic components of the operation are lavishly paid
speeches to Wall Street and Fortune 500 audiences, corporate campaign
contributions, and donations to the ostensibly philanthropic Clinton
Foundation.”
"But what the
Clintons do is criminal because they do it
wholly at the expense of the
American people. And they feel
thoroughly entitled to do it: gain power, use it
to enrich
themselves and their friends. They are amoral, immoral,
and venal.
Hillary has no core beliefs beyond power and
money. That should be clear to
every person on the planet by
now." ---- Patricia McCarthy -
AMERICANTHINKER.com
THE PHONY CLINTON FOUNDATION CHARITY slush
fund
“There is no controlling Bill Clinton. He does whatever he wants and runs up incredible expenses with
foundation funds,” states a separate interview memo attached to the submission.
“Bill Clinton mixes and matches his personal
business with that of the foundation. Many people within the foundation have
tried to caution him about this but he does not listen, and there really is no
talking to him,” the memo added.
HILLARY CLINTON: Serving
the super-rich and filling her bottomless pockets as she does!
"And this being
Hillary, with her stated presidential ambitions still remaining, it's also a
distinct possibility that donations to the Clinton Foundation are still being
sought, especially since they have dropped to nearly nothing now that Clinton
has no influence to sell. With Hillary, it's always about
money. Her stint as secretary of state was completely about pay to play, after all." MONICA
SHOWALTER – AMERICAN THINKER
Is it a signal that she's
back in the game because she's selling her president-ability to the world's
global billionaire crowd and laying the groundwork for more
funds? There are all kinds of ways for foreign billionaires to get
money to the U.S. without consequences, after all. What's more, it's
pretty much the biggest base of support she has, which is at least one reason
why she lost the 2016 election.
FEINSTEIN HAS SPENT HER POLITICAL LIFE STALKING THE HALLS OF
CONGRESS SNIFFING OUT DEALS THAT PUT HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS IN HER POCKETS.
SHE HAS AVOIDED PROSECUTION BY VOTING AGAINST ANY ETHICS BILLS
AND HER HUSBAND, RICHARD BLUM'S HANDING OUT "CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTION"
BRIBES TO EVERY DEMOCRAT OUT THERE!
*
IN THE November 2006 election, the voters demanded congressional
ethics reform. And so, the newly appointed chairman of the Senate Rules
Committee, Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., is now duly in charge of regulating the
ethical behavior of her colleagues. But for many years, Feinstein has been
beset by her own ethical conflict of interest, say congressional ethics
experts.
“All
in all, it was an incredible victory for the Chinese government. Feinstein has
done more for Red China than other any serving U.S. politician. “ Trevor Loudon
“Our entire crony capitalist system, Democrat and
Republican alike, has become a kleptocracy approaching par with
third-world hell-holes. This is the way a great country is raided by
its elite.” ---- Karen McQuillan AMERICAN THINKER.com
They Destroyed Our Country
“They knew Obama was an unqualified crook; yet they
promoted him. They knew Obama was a train wreck waiting to happen; yet they
made him president, to the great injury of America and the world. They understood
he was only a figurehead, an egomaniac, and a liar; yet they made him king,
doing great harm to our republic (perhaps irreparable.)”
Corruption
blinders of the media and other Democrats
Most journalists
and Democrats didn’t express any concerns when:
- VP Biden
threatened (promised) Ukraine that he would cut off a billion dollars in
aid to them if they didn't fire the prosecutor investigating a company his
son was involved with.
- Hunter
Biden got paid $50,000 a month as a board member of a corrupt Ukrainian
gas company when he had no expertise on the product of the company.
- Obama
promised the very dangerous Russia and Putin that he would be flexible if
he was reelected (somehow no one at FBI or elsewhere was ever concerned
that Russia may have tried to influence the 2012 election to elect the
flexible president.)
- Hillary,
Obama and many others violated the nation's security laws by using her
non-government computer.
- Obama
gave kickbacks to union supporters when he violated the nation's
bankruptcy law with the bailout of GM.
- Obama
used taxpayer dollars to reward political supporters like at Solyndra.
- Hillary,
through her family and foundation, got huge amounts of speech money and
donations from foreign countries. Russia, for example, got Uranium for
their generosity. (If there is any doubt about whether they were
kickbacks, that should have disappeared when the donations dried up and
speech fees dropped or dried up when she no longer could return favors)
- Obama
shipped over $1 billion in taxpayer money in unmarked bills, to Iran
tyrants, who still pledge death to America, to get a deal.
- Obama
dictatorially stopped a years’ long investigation into a billion dollar a year
drug running ring by terrorists to appease Iranian tyrants because he was
more concerned about his legacy than the safety, health and lives of the
American people.
- Hillary
and the DNC paying over $10 billion to buy a fake dossier from a foreign
national to destroy Trump. It appears they didn't think they could beat
him based on the truth or their policy proposals.
- Obama
and his administration, including the FBI, Justice Department, the
intelligence agencies and the State Department, using the fake dossier as
a source for FISA warrants and to infiltrate the Trump campaign with
informants. (they obviously didn't believe their record or policies would
win the votes). Instead of the media and other Democrats caring about this
pure corruption they have participated in perpetuating the lies about
Russian collusion for over three years.
- The
Obama Administration, at the Justice Department, EPA and CFPB using
taxpayer money for political purposes and political supporters by creating
slush funds from money confiscated from businesses that they pretended
would go to victims.
If the media and Democrats want to investigate anything, how
about a possible corrupt payback from Netflix to Obama? Obama gave the very
wealthy Netlfix, Google and others huge financial benefits with net neutrality
and Netflix gave the Obama's a huge contract even though they had no video
production expertise or experience. It is similar to paying Biden's son huge
amounts of money with no expertise.
But now when President Trump may have said something to a
foreign leader about investigating corruption by Biden's son, that is supposed
to be an impeachable offense. Shouldn't a President want political corruption
by politicians to be investigated? Shouldn't the media and other Democrats be
more concerned about the corruption itself than the phone call?
From this story, it appears that the media and other
Democrats believe that every phone call that Trump makes to a foreign leader
should become public knowledge if any bureaucrat makes a whistle blower report
when they disagree with something the president does. That would certainly be
cumbersome, and foreign leaders would no longer want to have discussions if
every discussion could be made public.
Elizabeth Warren says she wants to get rid of corruption but
not once have I heard her complain about the massive corruption during the
Obama years or at her precious CFPB, so she really doesn't care.
Isn't it odd that no bureaucrats seemed to care about the
corruption of Obama/Biden? It shows why we need to drain the swamp.
TRUMP AND HIS SAUDIS
The Saudi Challenge
Jamal
Khashoggi's murder -- and no one now questions whether the Washington Post
contributor was killed by Saudi agents in the kingdom's consulate in Turkey --
has far-reaching implications for the Trump administration. President Donald
Trump appears to want to help sweep the incident under the rug, providing cover
for the Saudis' ludicrous suggestion that the killing was a rogue operation or
an interrogation gone awry. And he's enmeshed the highest officials of his
administration in the mess by sending Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to Riyadh,
where the secretary was photographed, all smiles, sitting with Crown Prince
Mohammed bin Salman, who most likely ordered Khashoggi's murder. The
administration is giving itself little leeway to take serious measures to
protest the killing, signaling to the world that the U.S. cannot be counted on
to stand up against bloodthirsty autocrats, even when a U.S. resident and
member of the American press is the victim.
I doubt that Trump understands -- or cares about -- what message
he's sending. Wealthy Saudis, including members of the extended royal family,
have been his patrons for years, buying his distressed properties when he
needed money. In the early 1990s, a Saudi prince purchased Trump's flashy yacht
so that the then-struggling businessman could come up with cash to stave off
personal bankruptcy, and later, the prince bought a share of the Plaza Hotel,
one of Trump's many business deals gone bad. Trump also sold an entire floor of
his landmark Trump Tower condominium to the Saudi government in 2001. During
the campaign, the Trump Organization registered more than a half-dozen limited
liability companies in the kingdom, in anticipation of cashing in on Trump's
enhanced renown. When Trump actually won (which apparently he didn't think he
would at the time), someone must have explained he couldn't move ahead with new
business there as president, because he withdrew the registrations. Of course,
a little thing like benefiting from the office of the presidency hasn't stopped
the Trump Organization, run by the president's two eldest sons, from accepting
Saudi largesse since the election. With many Trump properties and brands losing
customers in today's highly polarized political atmosphere, Saudis are spending
lavishly on Trump properties in Washington, New York and even Chicago as many
others avoid them.
But
if Trump doesn't get why looking the other way when an American journalist is
tortured, beheaded and hacked to pieces by a team of Saudi government
operatives is bad, surely national security adviser John Bolton and Secretary
Pompeo do. Autocrats are stepping up their game around the world. Russian
President Vladimir Putin didn't hesitate to order a hit on British soil of an
ex-KGB agent and his daughter earlier this year. But the United Kingdom
responded quickly, kicking out Russian diplomats and imposing sanctions. The
United States followed suit, but only because Congress, not Trump, knew that to
do otherwise would have let down an ally and encouraged a despot. When asked in
a "60 Minutes" interview Sunday whether he believes that Putin was
involved in the poisoning and other assassinations, Trump's response was:
"Probably he is, yeah. ... But I rely on them. It's not in our
country."
The
Trump administration relies on Saudi Arabia, too. It is the enemy of our enemy
Iran, which, in political calculus, makes Saudis our "friends." But
even friends require reining in at times. And these friends need us more than
we need them. We are no longer dependent on oil imports; our oil reserves
surpass those of Saudi Arabia. Although Trump worries about losing that
promised $110 billion Saudi arms purchase he keeps touting (but which has yet
to materialize), the Saudis don't have anywhere else to go if they want to keep
their airplanes in the air. They are locked in by past purchases; no one else
can deliver the spare parts for U.S.-built weapons. As for the help in
challenging Iran, they have no choice there, either. Iran is far more a direct
threat to the kingdom than it is to the U.S. And as for their most crucial role
-- the war on Islamic terrorism -- the Saudis claim to fight terrorism but are
also a major source of funding for radical Islamic schools and mosques that
recruit terrorists around the world.
The
administration has only a short time to come up with a proper and proportionate
response to the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. The president thinks Americans will
move on -- but his inaction makes the world a more dangerous place. And next
time, the attack just might be on American soil.
Trump
scrambles to cover for Saudi regime as crisis over Khashoggi murder mounts
By Barry
Grey
19 October 2018
Following US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s emergency talks in
Riyadh and Ankara, and amid mounting reports implicating Saudi Crown Prince
Mohammed bin Salman in the murder of dissident Saudi journalist Jamal
Khashoggi, the Trump administration is scrambling to shield Washington’s closest
ally in the Arab World.
On Thursday, Trump continued to suggest that Prince Mohammed and
his father, King Salman, may have had nothing to do with the disappearance and
evident torture and murder of Khashoggi on October 2 in the Saudi consulate in
Istanbul. However, after being debriefed by Pompeo following the latter’s talks
with Prince Mohammed and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Trump told
reporters it appeared that Khashoggi was dead.
The official line is that Pompeo secured a pledge from the Saudi
leadership to hold accountable anyone found in the course of the regime’s own
investigation to have played a role in Khashoggi’s disappearance. On that
fraudulent basis, Pompeo advised Trump to give Riyadh several more days to
provide an accounting, after which the White House will decide its response.
Meanwhile, unnamed Turkish officials and the pro-Erdogan
newspaper Yeni
Safak reported Wednesday on the contents of what they claim is
an audio recording of the events that transpired in the Istanbul consulate
following Khashoggi’s entering the building on the afternoon of October 2. The
60-year-old self-exiled Saudi national and resident of Virginia in the US, who
went from being a regime insider to a Washington
Post columnist and critic of the new crown prince, ostensibly
went to the consulate to obtain documents in advance of his impending wedding
to a Turkish national. He never emerged from the consulate.
According to the Turkish accounts, he was almost immediately
attacked by a team of 15 men who had flown that day to Istanbul from Saudi
Arabia, brutally tortured, drugged, murdered, beheaded and dismembered. These
sources say his fingers were cut off, but do not stipulate whether that
occurred before or after he had expired. One of those reported to have been in
the group is a forensic doctor who carried a bone saw.
The Washington
Post on Wednesday published a detailed profile of the 15 men,
complete with photos and scans of travel documents. It reported that at least
nine of the men have ties to Saudi security. The New York Times reported
Wednesday that at least four are directly linked to the crown prince, having
traveled with him as part of his personal security detail.
The claim of Crown Prince Mohammed that he had no foreknowledge
of a plan to kill the former regime loyalist-turned critic is absurd on its
face. He is an absolute ruler in a brutal totalitarian dictatorship, and is
known to closely oversee the activities of his security apparatus and to be
personally extremely cruel.
Pompeo’s meetings on Tuesday with King Salman and Crown Prince
Mohammed were aimed at signaling continued US support while making a pretense
of seeking a full accounting of Khashoggi’s disappearance. The same is true of
his meeting the following day with Erdogan, at which he evidently did not ask
for a copy of the audio recording of the events inside the consulate.
For his part, the Turkish president has yet to publicly make any
accusation against the Saudi leadership or endorse the reports being leaked by
Turkish officials and the media. At odds with Riyadh over the Saudi regime’s
support for US-allied Kurdish forces in Syria, its backing for the el-Sisi
dictatorship in Egypt, and its lineup with Washington over Iran, Erdogan
appears nevertheless to be reluctant to sever relations with the oil-rich
Saudis and may be seeking to use Riyadh’s crisis as leverage in obtaining
concessions.
On Wednesday after meeting with Erdogan, Pompeo told reporters
on his plane back to the US: “I do think it’s important that everyone keep in
their mind that we have lots of important relations, financial relationships
between US and Saudi companies, government relationships, things that we work
on all across the world. The efforts to reduce the risk to the United States of
America from the world’s largest state sponsor of terror, Iran.
“We just need to make sure that we are mindful of that as we
approach decisions that the United States government will take when we learn
all of the facts.”
This amounts to an unwitting admission of the outright
criminality of both governments.
As the former CIA director and current secretary of state,
Pompeo’s reference to the “things we work on all across the world” includes
conspiring to strangle, destabilize and potentially wage war against Iran, in
alliance with Israel and most of the other Gulf oil sheikdoms.
These “things” also include the near-genocidal Saudi-led war in
Yemen, which has already killed some 50,000 men, women and children and
threatens another 14 million with starvation and deadly epidemics of cholera
and diphtheria. The Saudis could not carry out their relentless bombing and de
facto blockade of the Arab world’s poorest country without US arms, its mid-air
refueling of Saudi bombers, its provision of intelligence and help in selecting
targets and the assistance to its naval forces.
It is notable that in all of the US press commentary critical of
Trump and the Saudi crown prince, there is virtually no mention of the US role
in the slaughter in Yemen.
There is as well the collaboration between Washington and Riyadh
in suppressing the Palestinians and propping up Israel, and their joint support
for Al-Qaeda-linked Islamist terrorists in the war for regime-change in Syria.
The US is particularly reliant on the Saudi monarchy at the
present moment, in advance of its November 5 deadline for imposing sanctions
against all Iranian exports. It is counting on Riyadh to open its oil spigot to
prevent a spike in oil prices as a result of a sharp reduction in Iranian oil
exports.
At the same time, the administration is coming under increasing
pressure, both internationally and at home, to distance itself from the crown
prince. It made a reluctant concession to this pressure on Thursday with the
announcement that Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin would join the swelling
ranks of Western officials, bankers and media organizations that have announced
they will not attend next week’s international investors’ conference in Riyadh,
to be hosted by Crown Prince Mohammed.
Dubbed “Davos in the Desert,” the event is on the brink of
collapse. On Wednesday, International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine
Lagarde pulled out. Businesses that have made similar announcements include
Uber, JPMorgan Chase, Viacom, BlackRock and Blackstone Group. CNN, the Financial Times, CNBC,
Nikkei and the New York
Times are among the media organizations that have withdrawn as
media sponsors.
The likely debacle of the investors’ conference will intensify
an already acute crisis facing the Saudi monarchy. The Wall Street Journal reported
Thursday that global investors are growing increasingly alarmed at what the
newspaper called Saudi Arabia’s “debt binge” in recent months. In the
two-and-a-half years since May 2016, the country has floated $68 billion in
dollar-denominated bonds and syndicated loans—up from zero.
In addition, Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund took out its
first-ever bank loan last month, raising $11 billion. And the national oil
company Saudi Aramco plans to raise up to $50 billion.
Reflecting declining confidence in the regime, the cost of
insuring against Saudi default has risen by 30 percent since the disappearance
of Khashoggi, and even before the Khashoggi allegations, foreign direct
investment had fallen to historically low levels.
Also on Thursday, the Washington
Post published Khashoggi’s final column for the newspaper.
Introducing the piece, Global Opinions Editor Karen Attiah explained that
the Post had
received the column one day after Khashoggi’s disappearance, but had decided to
hold it in the hope that he would reemerge. In publishing the piece, the
newspaper acknowledged that the author had died.
The content of the column points to Khashoggi’s likely links to
sections of the US state and intelligence apparatus. A former aide to the Saudi
chief of intelligence and one-time ambassador to the US, Khashoggi had long
been known as an interlocutor between the Saudi regime and Western media and
government officials. He also had close ties to Osama bin Laden.
In his final column he compares the suppression of speech and
expression in the Arab world to the Soviet “Iron Curtain,” and calls for the
development of an “independent” news source in the Middle East modeled after
the cold war-era propaganda organ Radio Free Europe.
This would in part explain the furious reaction of Trump critics
in both political parties, the media and the intelligence establishment to the
administration’s efforts to alibi for the Saudi leadership. Obama’s CIA chief
John Brennan, for example, has repeatedly denounced Trump’s attempts to cover
for the regime and insisted that the crown prince personally ordered the murder
of Khashoggi
TRUMP AND THE MURDERING
9-11 MUSLIM SAUDIS…
Why is the Swamp Keeper
and his family of parasites up their ar$es??
WHAT WILL TRUMP AND
HIS PARASITIC FAMILY DO FOR MONEY???
JUST ASK THE
SAUDIS!
JOHN DEAN: Not so far. This has been right by the letter of the special counsel’s
charter. He’s released the document. What I’m looking for is relief and
understanding that there’s no witting or unwitting likelihood that the
President is an agent of Russia. That’s when I’ll feel comfortable, and no
evidence even hints at that. We don’t have that yet. We’re still in the process
of unfolding the report to look at it. And its, as I say, if [Attornery General
William Barr] honors his word, we’ll know more soon.
“Our
entire crony capitalist system, Democrat and
Republican
alike, has become a kleptocracy
approaching
par with third-world hell-holes. This
is the
way a great country is raided by its elite.” ---
-
Karen McQuillan AMERICAN THINKER
PRESIDENT of the UNITED STATES DONALD TRUMP: Pathological
liar, swindler, con man, huckster, golfing cheat, charity foundation fraudster,
tax evader, adulterer, porn whore chaser and servant of the Saudis dictators
THE TRUMP FAMILY FOUNDATION SLUSH FUND…. Will
they see jail?
VISUALIZE REVOLUTION!.... We know where they
live!
“Underwood is a Democrat and is seeking millions of dollars in
penalties. She wants Trump and his eldest children barred from running other
charities.”
Opinion: Trump And
Pompeo Have Enabled A Saudi Cover-Up Of The Khashoggi Killing
October 2, 201911:45 AM ET
In the weeks
following the death of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, President Trump spent
more time praising Saudi Arabia as a very important ally than he did
reacting to the killing.
Hasan Jamali/AP
Aaron David Miller (@aarondmiller2) is a senior fellow at the
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a former State Department Middle
East analyst, adviser and negotiator in Republican and Democratic
administrations. He is the author most recently of the End of Greatness:
Why America Can't Have (and Doesn't Want) Another Great President.
Richard Sokolsky, a nonresident senior fellow at the Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace, worked in the State Department for six
different administrations and was a member of the secretary of state's Office
of Policy Planning from 2005 to 2015.
It has been a year since Saudi journalist and Washington Post columnist
Jamal Khashoggi entered Saudi Arabia's Consulate in Istanbul where he was slain
and dismembered. There is still no objective or comprehensive Saudi or American
accounting of what occurred, let alone any real accountability.
The Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's admission in a
recent CBS interview that
he takes "full responsibility," while denying foreknowledge of the
killing or that he ordered it, sweeps under the rug the lengths to which the
Saudis have gone to obscure the truth about their involvement in the killing
and cover-up.
The Saudi campaign of obfuscation, denial and cover-up would never
have gotten off the ground had it not been for the Trump administration's
support over the past year. The president and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
not only refused to distance themselves from the crown prince, known by his
initials MBS, but also actively worked to relegitimize him. The Saudis killed
Khashoggi but Trump acquiesced in the cover-up and worked hard to protect the
U.S.-Saudi relationship and soften the crown prince's pariah status. In short,
without Trump, the attempted makeover — such as it is — would not have been
possible.
The
Saudis killed Khashoggi but Trump acquiesced in the cover-up and worked hard to
protect the U.S.-Saudi relationship and soften the crown prince's pariah
status.
Weak administration response
The administration's weak and feckless
response to Khashoggi's killing was foreshadowed a year before it occurred. In
May 2017, in an unusual break with precedent, Trump visited Saudi Arabia on his
inaugural presidential trip; gave his son-in-law the authority to manage the
MBS file, which he did with the utmost secrecy; and made it unmistakably clear
that Saudi money, oil, arm purchases and support for the administration's
anti-Iranian and pro-Israeli policies would elevate the U.S.-Saudi
"special relationship" to a new level.
Predictably, therefore, the administration's reaction to
Khashoggi's killing was shaped by a desire to manage the damage and preserve
the relationship. In the weeks following Khashoggi's death, Trump spent
more time praising Saudi Arabia as a very important ally, especially as a
purchaser of U.S. weapons and goods, than he did
reacting to the killing. Trump vowed to get to the bottom of the
Khashoggi killing but focused more on defending the crown prince, saying this was another example of
being "guilty before being proven innocent."
Those pledges to investigate and impose accountability would
continue to remain hollow. Over the past year, Trump and Pompeo have neither
criticized nor repudiated Saudi actions that have harmed American interests in
the Middle East. Two months after Khashoggi's death, the administration, in
what Pompeo described as an "initial step," imposed sanctions on 17
Saudi individuals implicated in the killing. But no others have been
forthcoming, and the visa restrictions that were imposed are meaningless
because none of the sanctioned Saudis would
be foolish enough to seek entry into the United States.
What's more, the administration virtually ignored a congressional
resolution imposing sanctions on the Saudis for human rights abuses
and vetoed another bipartisan resolution that would have ended U.S. military
assistance to Saudi Arabia's inhumane military campaign in Yemen.
The Saudis opened a trial in January of 11 men implicated in the
killing, but the proceedings have been slow and secretive, leading the United
Nations' top human rights expert to declare that "the trial underway in
Saudi Arabia will not deliver credible accountability." Despite
accusations that the crown prince's key adviser Saud al-Qahtani was involved in
the killing, he's still advising MBS, has not stood trial and
will likely escape punishment. A year later, there are still no reports of
convictions or serious punishment.
Legitimizing Mohammed bin Salman
The Trump administration has not only given the crown prince a
pass on the Khashoggi killing, but it has also worked assiduously to remove his
pariah status and rehabilitate his global image. Barely two months after the
2018 slaying, Trump was exchanging pleasantries with the crown prince at the Group
of 20 summit in Buenos Aires and holding out prospects of spending more
time with him. Then this past June, at the G-20 in Osaka, Japan, Trump sang his
praises while dodging questions about the killing. "It's an honor to be
with the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, a friend of mine, a man who has really
done things in the last five years in terms of opening up Saudi
Arabia," Trump said.
And you can
bet that when Saudi Arabia hosts the G-20, scheduled to be held in its capital
of Riyadh in November 2020, the Trump administration will be smiling as its
rehab project takes another step in its desired direction.
What the U.S. should have done
Trump has failed to impose any serious costs or constraints on
Saudi Arabia for the killing of a U.S. newspaper columnist who resided in
Virginia or for the kingdom's aggressive policies, from Yemen to Qatar. In the
wake of the Khashoggi killing, the administration should have made it
unmistakably clear, both publicly and privately, that it expected a
comprehensive and credible accounting and investigation. It should have suspended
high-level contacts and arms sales with the kingdom for a period of time. And
to make the point, the administration should have supported at least one
congressional resolution taking the Saudis to task, in addition to triggering
the Magnitsky Act, which would have required a U.S. investigation; a report to
Congress; and sanctions if warranted.
Back to business as usual
The dark
stain of the crown prince's apparent involvement in Khashoggi's death will not
fade easily. But for Trump and Pompeo, it pales before the great expectations
they still maintain for the kingdom to confront and contain their common enemy,
Iran, as well as support the White House's plan for Middle East peace, defeat
jihadists in the region and keep the oil spigot open.
Most of
these goals are illusory. Saudi Arabia is a weak, fearful and unreliable ally.
The kingdom has introduced significant social and cultural reforms but has
imposed new levels of repression and authoritarianism. Its reckless policies
toward Yemen and Qatar have expanded, not contracted, opportunities for Iran,
while the Saudi military has demonstrated that, even after spending billions to
buy America's most sophisticated weapons, it still can't defend itself without
American help.
Meanwhile,
recent attacks on critical Saudi oil facilities that the U.S. blames on Iran
have helped rally more American and international support for the kingdom.
When it
comes to the U.S.-Saudi relationship and the kingdom's callous reaction to
Khashoggi's killing, the president and his secretary of state have been
derelict in their duty: They have not only failed to advance American strategic
interests but also undermined America's values in the process.
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