Report: CIA Has Tape Proving MBS Ordered Khashoggi Murder

Although it's in Turkey's interest to bring down Sawdi Crown Prince Mohammed "Bone Saw" bin Salman, it's completely plausible to believe the CIA has this kind of evidence to support its "high confidence" finding that Bone Saw ordered journalist Jamal Khashoggi's murder:

A Turkish opinion columnist on Thursday said the CIA had wiretapped a phone call in which Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman called for the Saudi critic Jamal Khashoggi to be silenced "as soon as possible." 

The news, citing unnamed sources and published to Turkey's Hurriyet news website, comes shortly after President Donald Trump on Tuesday issued a frantic proclamation saying the US would stand by Saudi Arabia despite the possibility that Crown Prince Mohammed ordered Khashoggi's killing. 

Of course, in the face of mounting evidence from his own intelligence service, sociopath and would- be autocrat Donald "Rump" Trump prefers to ignore the obvious in favor of kissing Sawdi heinie, making the whole sordid, murderous mess simply a transactional arrangement ("You keep oil prices down and defense contracts flowing, and you can do whatever you want"; and, likely, "You keep your financial leverage over the Trump Organization and Princeling Jared quiet, and you can do whatever you want").

Eugene Robinson sums up with a reality check:

In Riyadh, they must be laughing at President Trump. In Pyongyang, too, and in Tehran. In Beijing and, of course, in Moscow, they must be laughing until it hurts. They look at Washington and they don’t see a champion of freedom and human rights. They see a preening, clueless clown. 

Trump’s reaction — or non-reaction — to the Saudi regime’s brutal killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi is a holiday-season gift to autocrats around the globe. It shows them that if you just shower Trump with over-the-top flattery, feed him some geopolitical mumbo jumbo and make vague promises to perhaps buy some American-made goods in the future, he will literally let you get away with murder. [snip] 

After weeks of hemming and hawing, the White House put out a statement Tuesday from Trump making clear that for the murder of Khashoggi — who lived in Virginia, was a permanent U.S. resident and had children who are U.S. citizens — the Saudi regime will face no consequences. Zero. Not even a slap on the wrist. [snip] 

In the statement — which is headlined “America First!” — Trump emphasizes what he calls the “record amount of money” that Saudi Arabia is supposedly prepared to spend in the United States. Trump goes on to make a series of false claims. No, there is no agreement for the Saudis to spend $450 billion on U.S. goods, despite Trump’s assertion. No, there is no firm agreement for $110 billion in arms sales; the actual figure is $14.5 billion. No, what Trump reckons as “hundreds of thousands of jobs” are not at stake. And no, the Saudis could not simply decide to buy Chinese or Russian arms, instead. 

The truth is that in the U.S.-Saudi relationship, the United States holds all the cards. We don’t need the Saudis’ oil and can easily do without their arms purchases. By contrast, without U.S. military assistance and American-made spare parts, the Saudi armed forces could not function.

Far from making our country "great again," Rump continues to weaken it, forsaking allies in favor of tyrants, undercutting our intelligence and law enforcement community, atomizing whatever is left of American moral authority in the world, and making it clear that we're being led by a "clueless clown" who's willing to sell America cheap to the dirtiest thugs in the world -- and then, of course, lie about it.

BONUS:  Democrats are, of course, primed to "go after Trump with a hatchet" (or maybe a bone saw?) on the Khashoggi murder and the Sawdi connection.  Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) puts it more delicately.