Jamal Khashoggi, Washington Post columnist and prominent Saudi dissident, walked into the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul last week to pick up a document needed for his marriage. He has not been seen since. Turkish investigators said they believe Khashoggi was killed and dismembered by a team of 15 Saudi agents. Saudi officials have denied they murdered the journalist.
The potential assassination of a journalist on foreign soil raises questions over how the United States will confront Saudi Arabia, an ally the Trump administration has made significant outreach to.
Senator Lindsey Graham said it is “imperative that we find out what happened to Mr. Khashoggi and the Saudi government give a clear answer as to their conduct and information on his whereabouts.”
The White House, meanwhile, has so not yet issued a statement demanding answers on Khashoggi’s disappearance. Trump, not a president known to hold his tongue, has yet to address it on his Twitter account.
Per the Washington Post:
The Trump administration has said little beyond expressing public concern over Khashoggi’s fate, and the kingdom has sharply denied any knowledge
of his whereabouts. In private, officials from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on down have been frustrated with the lack of a substantive response to direct high-level queries, according to administration officials.
Former U.S. officials, journalists and commentators joined calls from lawmakers to demand answers from Saudi Arabia.
Samantha Power, former U.N. ambassador, lamented on Twitter that the “one government that has the influence to get answers on #Kashoggi is mute.”
“The Trump administration’s loyalty to Saudi Arabia & MBS – given the horrors in Yemen, this & more – is a travesty,” she wrote.
New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, calling U.S. lenience on Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman a “catastrophe”, said the Trump administration should cut off arms sales to the kingdom.
Fellow Times columnist Tom Friedman agreed, along with a number of other prominent journalists and commentators:
[Photo by Ozan Kose/AFP/Getty Images]