The "Sawdi" regime's continuing attempts to explain and excuse the murder of Jamal Khashoggi in their consulate in Istanbul on October 2 aren't selling. The lies that they've told from the beginning are transparently ridiculous: Khashoggi came to the consulate but left (video and audio evidence that contradicts that), Khashoggi died as a result of a fight with 15 thugs sent by the regime in Riyadh, etc. (so why bring the bone saw, and where are his remains?). The regime is doing everything they can to protect the dementia-ridden King and his sinister son, Crown Prince Mohammed "Mohammed Bone Saw" bin Salman, or MBS.
Senior officials close to Turkish President Erdogan are warning the Sawdis that they will not permit a cover up. Numan Kurtulmus, the deputy chairman of Erdogan's ruling party, said this:
“A crime committed in a consulate cannot be carried out without the knowledge of the senior state officials of that country. If this crime was really carried out as has been said, if the evidence really leads to that conclusion, the situation will be dire and this must have very serious legal consequences.”There's little question that an operation involving Sawdi security forces on foreign soil targeting a critic of the regime would have to have the approval of the Crown Prince. There's almost universal skepticism -- to say the least -- about the latest account from Riyadh. The UK, France and Germany issued a joint statement calling on Riyadh for further explanation of the murder. Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland put it this way:
“The explanations offered to date lack consistency and credibility...Those responsible for the killing must be held to account and must face justice."Retiring Republican Senator Bob Corker, who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was uncharacteristically blunt in his assignment of the blame for the horrific murder:
“'Do I think [MBS] did it? Yes, I think he did it,' Senator Bob Corker, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in an interview with CNN’s 'State of the Union.'Increasingly, sociopath and friend-of-dictators Donald "Rump" Trump is seeing the
Corker said he was waiting for investigations to be completed and hoped that Turkey would share any audio tapes of the killing of Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.
However, he made clear he believed the Crown Prince Mohammed directed the murder.
'Let’s let this play out but my guess is that at the end of the day the United States and the rest of the world will believe fully that he did it,' Corker said."
BONUS:
BONUS II: The WaPo reports that Rump is miffed with Jared "Mr. Ivanka Trump" Kushner's mishandling of the Khashoggi affair."You don't bring a bone saw to an accidental fist fight," says GOP Sen. Ben Sasse of the Saudis' explanation for journalist Jamal Khashoggi's death. "The Saudis have said a whole bunch of crap that's not right, accurate, or true" #CNNSOTU pic.twitter.com/kplFCzD1nU— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) October 21, 2018
