Mike Pompeo gave Saudis plan to shield prince from blame after Khashoggi killing
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https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/saudis-using-pompeos-plan-shield-leadership-khashoggi-fallout-says-source-1684431379
Saudi Arabia's king and crown prince are shielding themselves from the Jamal Khashoggi murder scandal by using a roadmap drawn up by the US secretary of state, a senior Saudi
source has told Middle East Eye.
Mike Pompeo delivered the plan in person during a meeting with Saudi King Salman and his son, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, last month in Riyadh, said the source, who is
familiar with Pompeo's talks with the Saudi leaders.
The plan includes an option to pin the Saudi journalist’s murder on an innocent member of the ruling al-Saud family in order to insulate those at the very top, the source told MEE.
That person has not yet been chosen, the source said, and Saudi leaders are reserving the use of that plan in case the pressure on bin Salman, also known as MBS, becomes too much.
“We would not be surprised if that happens,” the source told MEE.
The US State Department denied the Saudi source's allegations, and called them "a complete misrepresentation of the secretary’s diplomatic mission to Saudi Arabia". "We’ve spoken
publicly about our goals: to impress upon Saudi leadership the seriousness to which the United States government attaches to a prompt and complete accounting of the murder
of Jamal Kashoggi,” State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert told MEE.
According to the source, Pompeo outlined his plan on 16 October, when he jetted over to Riyadh to meet with King Salman and MBS as international scrutiny on the Khashoggi case
intensified. Pompeo’s trip to the Gulf kingdom came exactly two weeks after Khashoggi, a prominent journalist and critic of the crown prince, was murdered inside the Saudi consulate
in Istanbul on 2 October.
The day after the high-profile meeting, Pompeo told journalists that the Saudis didn't want to talk about the facts in Khashoggi’s case and neither did he."I don’t want to talk about any
of the facts,” Pompeo said as he travelled to Turkey. “They didn’t want to either." The Saudi source told MEE that Pompeo went to Riyadh to advise the Saudis on how to handle the
fallout in the Khashoggi case.
Pompeo’s plan for the Saudi leadership included several steps, the Saudi source said. When Pompeo declared on 18 October that Saudi Arabia should be given “a few more days” to
complete its investigation into the case, he was giving them time to begin implementing his plan, the source said. “They [the Saudi leadership] have done everything he wanted to
execute,” the source said.
Since Pompeo's visit to Riyadh, the Saudis have allowed Turkish investigators into their Istanbul consulate, offered to coordinate a joint Saudi-Turkish investigation, sent a team to
Istanbul to pursue the probe and arrested at least 21 suspects.The remaining step - pinning the crime on a member of the royal family - may be taken if the arrests of those Saudi
suspects don't work to ease the pressure on Riyadh, the source said.
Seth Abramson wrote in detail how Saudi Arabia, Israel, and the UAE are linked to Trump with the goal of getting him elected to lift sanctions on Russia so Russia will stop backing
Iran.
When was the last time the US Government did anything that benefited the country and not just a select few
Yeah but what about all those people who knew the Clintons who died
While the story is believable, id like to see an alternate source especially because i have never heard of "middle east eye" before.