Washington Post Slams Mike Pompeo For ‘Shameful’ Attacks on Jamal Khashoggi: Dishonored a ‘Courageous Man’

The Washington Post ripped former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for using his new book to bash Jamal Khashoggi and dismiss his murder by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman’s orders.

The Post released a statement on Tuesday from Publisher and CEO Fred Ryan, hitting back at what Pompeo wrote about Khashoggi in his new memoir Never Give an Inch: Fighting for the America I Love

“It is shocking and disappointing to see Mike Pompeo’s book so outrageously misrepresent the life and work of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. As the CIA — which Pompeo once directed — concluded, Jamal was brutally murdered on the orders of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman. His only offense was exposing corruption and oppression among those in power-work that good journalists around the world do every day.”

“Jamal dedicated himself to the values of free speech and a free press and held himself to the highest professional standards. For this devotion, he paid the ultimate price,” the statement continued. “It is shameful that Pompeo would spread vile falsehoods to dishonor a courageous man’s life and service-and his commitment to principles Americans hold dear-as a ploy to sell books.”

The Post’s statement responds to Pompeo complaining in his book about how Khashoggi received an outpouring of sympathetic media coverage after his brutal death. While Pompeo wrote that the columnist “didn’t deserve to die,” he called Khashoggi an “activist,” attacked him over his ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, and sneered at the media coverage that held Khashoggi up as someone who stood up to the Saudi government’s authoritarianism.