Former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo denied the outrage over the killing Jamal Khashoggi as “fake outrage”—and casting doubt on whether the Washington Post columnist was a real journalist at all.
in His new bookKhashoggi — who was murdered by Saudi agents in Istanbul in 2018 — was not “cited Saudi Bob Woodward for his courageous criticism of the Saudi royal family,” Pompeo says.
Instead, Pompeo argues, Khashoggi was a “losing team activist”.
Pompeo’s book, Don’t Give an Inch: Fighting for the America I Love, will be published on Tuesday. Watchman obtained and reported version last week. NBC News mentioned statements about Khashoggi.
Khashoggi’s widow told NBC that Pompeo should “shut up.”
Khashoggi was an outspoken critic of the government in Riyadh, and was killed – dismembered with a bone saw – when he went to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2, 2018. His remains are there. Not found.
US intelligence reportedly determined that the killing was agreed From the Saudi Crown Prince. But Mohammed bin Salman, better known as MBS, was close to Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser. The Trump administration’s unwillingness to condemn the killing has drawn widespread criticism around the world.
In his memoirs, Pompeo – the potential Republican presidential candidate – gave his description of the Khashoggi case in provocative terms, saying that the Trump administration’s relationship with Saudi Arabia “Making the media crazier than a vegan in a slaughterhouse”.
He calls Khashoggi’s murder “a heinous massacre…heinous, unacceptable, appalling and despicable, vicious, brutal and, of course, illegal.”
But, he writes, the killing “wasn’t surprising—not to me, anyway. I’d seen enough of the Middle East to know that this kind of cruelty was all too routine in that part of the world.”
Pompeo bemoaned the “false outrage … fueled by the media.” Reporters, he says, “severely polished the story because Khashoggi was a ‘journalist'”.
To be clear, Khashoggi was such a journalist that I and many other public figures are. We publish our writing sometimes, but we also do other things. The media made Khashoggi the Saudis Bob Woodward, who was cited for his courageous criticism of the Saudi royal family through his op-eds in The Washington Post.
“In truth, Khashoggi was an activist who supported the losing team in a final battle for the throne… unhappy with his exile.”
Citing a New York Times report, Pompeo accuses Khashoggi of “dealing with the Muslim Brotherhood that supports terrorism” and says he expressed regret over the death of Osama bin Laden, another Saudi citizen.
“He didn’t deserve to die,” Pompeo wrote, “but we need to be clear about who he was — and a lot of people in the media didn’t.”
Khashoggi’s widow, Hanan al-Eter Khashoggi, said on Monday, he told NBC: Jamal Khashoggi is not from the Muslim Brotherhood. I assure you of that.” She also said that Khashoggi “always condemned” the September 11 attacks, which were planned by bin Laden.
Pompeo is set to bring his experience as CIA director and secretary of state to bear in his anticipated run for the Republican presidential nomination, a contest in which he trails Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis by huge margins in early balloting. Pompeo’s book is one of a large number of such volumes issued on or due to the primary approach.
Hanan al-Atr Khashoggi said she wanted to “silence all those who publish books and despise my husband and collect money from him.”
She added, “Whatever [Pompeo] He mentions my husband, he does not know my husband. He should shut up and silence my husband’s lies. It’s bad information, wrong information… This is unacceptable.”