Trump won’t sacrifice business ties with Saudis over Khashoggi murder: Journalist
US President Donald Trump’s personal business ties with Saudi Arabia and his connections to the Saudi royal family will prevent Trump from punishing Riyadh for murdering Saudi dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi, an investigative journalist in Washington says.
“Trump is not really going to take any action against the Saudis,” said Wayne Madsen, an author and columnist specializing in intelligence and international affairs.
“His son-in-law Jared Kushner has a financial arrangement with the Saudis; the Saudis sell his daughter Ivanka’s goods in Saudi Arabian shopping centers,” Madsen said during a phone interview with Press TV on Monday.
The murder of Khashoggi, who escaped to the US last year and worked as a Washington Post columnist, has escalated into a crisis for the world’s top oil exporter as Saudi Arabia’s allies have reacted with outrage.
US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Sunday in Bahrain that the killing of Khashoggi undermined the stability of the Middle East and that Washington would take additional measures against those responsible.
Last week, Trump said Saudi officials had engaged in the “worst cover-up ever” and that those behind the killing “should be in big trouble.”
But Trump has also highlighted Riyadh as a major purchaser of American weapons.
US lawmakers have accused Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, also known as MBS and the country’s de facto leader, of ordering the killing.
Republican Senator Rand Paul lambasted Saudi Arabia on Saturday as a sponsor of terrorism, saying the United States can no longer be blasé about the bad behavior of the kingdom.
The senator also condemned the Saudi-led brutal war on Yemen, which, so far, has killed more than 15,000 Yemenis and wounded thousands of others in the impoverished nation.
Madsen dismissed Paul’s criticism of Saudi Arabia, saying the senator is “inconsistent” and “support’s all of Donald Trump’s policies.”
“Rand Paul can say whatever he wants, but unless he totally divorces himself from the Trump administration, he’s just whistling past the graveyard,” Madsen said.
“I don’t put much faith in Rand Paul; he’s not a very consistent senator,” he added.
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