Still Missing Turkey - Jamal Khashoggi, 59, Washington Post columnist, Istanbul, 3 Oct 2018

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A member of a Saudi assassination squad phoned a superior shortly after JK was murdered and told him "tell your boss" their mission had been accomplished, The New York Times reported.

Citing three people familiar with a recording of KJ's killing collected by Turkish intelligence, the newspaper said while he was not mentioned by name, US officials believe "your boss" was a reference to the Crown Prince. US intelligence officials view the recording as some of the strongest evidence yet linking bin Salman to the murder.

Turkish intelligence officers told US officials they believe the call was made to one of bin Salman's close aides.

Jamal Khashoggi case: All the latest updates
 
The GuardianAustralia
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U.S. says audio recording of Khashoggi killing does not implicate Saudi crown prince
U.S. national security adviser John Bolton said Tuesday that an audio recording of journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s death inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul did not appear to provide any link between the killers and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Bolton, speaking on the sidelines of a regional summit in Singapore, said he has not listened to the tape himself but that “those who have listened to it” assess that Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler is not implicated.

Recordings of the Oct. 2 operation, carried out by a 15-man hit squad inside the Saudi Consulate, have been shared with Western intelligence officials. The office of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Monday that transcripts of the audio have also been shared with the agencies.

Western diplomats and Turkish officials say it would be difficult to carry out such an operation without the approval of Mohammed. At least one member of the Saudi hit squad previously served as his bodyguard.
According to a New York Times report published Monday, citing three people familiar with the recording, Maher Abdulaziz Mutreb, the bodyguard, can be heard making a phone call after Khashoggi’s death. “Tell your boss,” he is reported to have said.

Khashoggi was a former palace insider and Washington Post contributing columnist who lived in self-imposed exile in Virginia, telling friends he feared the reach of the Saudi state.

Since coming to power, Mohammed has launched sweeping social reforms at home while adopting hawkish foreign policies. He has also led a far-reaching crackdown on perceived opponents, detaining activists, clerics and dozens of princes.

The Trump administration views the powerful crown prince as a vital partner. Saudi Arabia is a major purchaser of American weapons and the linchpin of a regional strategy focused on rolling back Iranian influence.

Bolton described the relationship as “incredibly important” and said Trump did not believe that ongoing probes into the killing would affect arms sales to the kingdom.
 
US Republican Senator Lindsey Graham upped his rhetoric against MbS on Tuesday, saying the crown prince is "unstable and unreliable". He doesn't see the "situation getting fixed as long as he's is around". He said there is still no plan in place, but he and other senators are discussing sanctions against SA over JK's death.

The US Senate may vote within weeks on legislation to punish SA over the murder and the devastating war in Yemen. Senator Bob Corker said the Senate could vote before the end of the year on a resolution seeking to cut off all assistance to SA for the war. He said it was also possible that measures to prevent arms sales to Riyadh would make it to the Senate floor. His staff has asked that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Defense Secretary James Mattis, and CIA Director Gina Haspel come to the Capitol as soon as late November for a classified briefing to address concerns about Yemen and JK’s death.

Jamal Khashoggi case: All the latest updates
 
BREAKING

Saudi prosecutors said Thursday they would seek the death penalty for five people allegedly involved in the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

It also shared details of the journalist's murder, saying Khashoggi was killed following "a fight and a quarrel" at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. He was tied up and injected with an overdose of a sedative that killed him, then his body was chopped up and given to a local collaborator, the prosecutor said.

The Saudi Public Prosecutor's office said the former Saudi deputy intelligence chief ordered a mission to force JK to go back to SA and formed a team of 15 people.

They were divided into three groups, the prosecutor said: a negotiation team, an intelligence team and a logistical team. The prosecutor said the head of the negotiating team ordered the killing.

Jamal Khashoggi: Saudi Prosecutor seeks death penalty - CNN
 
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NBC News on Twitter
NEW: Exclusive: Trump admin. officials asked federal law enforcement agencies to examine legal ways of removing exiled Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen from US in attempt to persuade Turkish Pres. Erdogan to ease pressure on Saudi gov't, four sources say. Trump administration officials last month asked federal law enforcement agencies to examine legal ways of removing exiled Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen, according to two senior U.S. officials and two other people briefed on the requests. The effort includes directives to the Justice Department and FBI that officials reopen Turkey's case for his extradition, as well as a request to the Homeland Security Department for information about his legal status, the four people said.

Susan Hennessey on Twitter

For some context, here is what @benjaminwittes and I wrote a year ago (almost to the day) about the initial reports of then-NSA advisor Mike Flynn's alleged involvement in a plot to kidnap Gulen: What to Make of the Latest Story About Flynn and Gulen?

Ragıp Soylu on Twitter
WOW!

Seems like Trump administration tried to bribe Turkey by attempting to extradite Fethullah Gulen.

Aim?

Saving high level Saudi officials involved in Khashoggi murder?

Trump administration officials last month asked federal law enforcement agencies to examine legal ways of removing exiled Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen, according to two senior U.S. officials and two other people briefed on the requests. The effort includes directives to the Justice Department and FBI that officials reopen Turkey's case for his extradition, as well as a request to the Homeland Security Department for information about his legal status, the four people said.

Paul Blumenthal on Twitter
The thrust of the Gulen story is that the WH considered shipping a U.S. green card holder to likely torture and death in exchange for a cover-up of the murder of another U.S. green card holder to preserve a weapons deal with a country that spends money at the president's hotel.
 
The CIA has concluded that Saudi Crown Prince ordered the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi month, contradicting the Saudi government's claims that he was not involved.

The CIA's assessment, in which officials have said they have high confidence, is the most definitive to date linking MbS to the operation and complicates the Trump administration's efforts to preserve its relationship with a close ally.

In reaching its conclusions, the CIA examined multiple sources of intelligence, including a phone call that the prince's brother Khalid bin Salman, the Saudi ambassador to the United States, had with JK.

Among the intelligence assembled by the CIA is an audio recording from a listening device that the Turks placed inside the Saudi consulate, according to the people familiar with the matter. The Turks gave the CIA a copy of that audio, and the agency's director, Gina Haspel, has listened to it.

Saudi crown prince ordered Khashoggi's assassination: CIA
 
US Vice President Mike Pence has said the US will hold the murderers of Jamal Khashoggi to account, following reports in US media that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the killing.

The vice president described the murder of the Saudi journalist as an "atrocity" and an "affront to a free and independent press" but declined to comment on classified information.

Jamal Khashoggi case: All the latest updates
 
JudgeJudi said:
The CIA has concluded that Saudi Crown Prince ordered the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi month, contradicting the Saudi government's claims that he was not involved.

The CIA's assessment, in which officials have said they have high confidence, is the most definitive to date linking MbS to the operation and complicates the Trump administration's efforts to preserve its relationship with a close ally.

In reaching its conclusions, the CIA examined multiple sources of intelligence, including a phone call that the prince's brother Khalid bin Salman, the Saudi ambassador to the United States, had with JK.

Among the intelligence assembled by the CIA is an audio recording from a listening device that the Turks placed inside the Saudi consulate, according to the people familiar with the matter. The Turks gave the CIA a copy of that audio, and the agency's director, Gina Haspel, has listened to it.

Saudi crown prince ordered Khashoggi's assassination: CIA
Click to expand...
Rappler on Twitter
According to the CIA, 15 Saudi agents flew on government aircraft and assassinated the journalist in the Saudi consulate. #WorldNews CIA concludes Saudi Crown Prince behind Khashoggi murder – report
 

CIA Khashoggi findings 'highly damaging' to Mohammed bin Salman

Martin Chulov
4 hrs ago
The CIA’s conclusion that the murder of Jamal Khashoggi was ordered by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has been described as the most damaging blow yet to the de facto Saudi leader, officially placing him at the heart of a scandal that continues to shake the region.
The finding, first reported by the Washington Post, for which Khashoggi had written, was the first US government assessment linking Prince Mohammed to the dissident Saudi’s death in Turkey.

It came after Donald Trump and his national security adviser, John Bolton, had tried to shield him from criminal investigations that have incriminated 21 Saudi agents in the grisly murder.

The US president had previously suggested the killing inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul was carried out by rogue actors who had exceeded their authority.
The CIA found, however, that Prince Mohammed’s tight grip on decision-making made such a claim highly unlikely.

<modsnip - copyright 10% rule>
 
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Trump administration sacrifices Jamal Khashoggi to further American interests
By Washington bureau chief Zoe Daniel
Updated yesterday at 9:47amWed 21 Nov 2018, 9:47am
 
From above post:

What Mr Trump means is that there's no public smoking gun (or tape) directly connecting the Crown Prince to the crime, so even though intelligence agencies think he's responsible, there's enough room to exploit the remaining crevice of doubt.

Mr Trump is a specialist at that, and although he hasn't heard the tape of the murder, he has been briefed on it and obviously thinks he is on solid ground.
The US President is also using the age old "people say" strategy to cast doubt on the scruples of the victim.

"Representatives of Saudi Arabia say that Jamal Khashoggi was an "enemy of the state" and a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, but my decision is in no way based on that — this is an unacceptable and horrible crime."

Unacceptable and horrible, but not all that punishable, according to the actions of the US administration.

"It's about 'Make America Great Again.' It's about 'America First.' We're going to stay with Saudi Arabia," Mr Trump told reporters on the White House lawn earlier today.
 
AAxY32u.img

Trump thanks Saudis after defying calls to punish prince

4 hrs ago
U.S. President Donald Trump publicly thanked Saudi Arabia for plunging oil prices just a day after he was harshly criticised for deciding not to further punish the kingdom for the killing of U.S.-based columnist Jamal Khashoggi.

Trump, who made clear in an exclamation-filled statement on Tuesday (Wednesday AEDT) that he feels that the benefits of good relations with the kingdom outweigh the possibility its crown prince ordered the killing, tweeted on Wednesday (Thursday AEDT) that it's "Great!" that oil prices are falling.
"Thank you to Saudi Arabia, but let's go lower!" he wrote from his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, where he's spending Thanksgiving.
 
Investigators have said that the operation to kill JK was planned 12 days in advance. Investigators sifting through 19 phone calls made by Maher Mutreb, thought to be the lead negotiator inside the consulate, to SA have found that four of them were made to Saud al-Qahtani and that there is a third voice on the calls.

Al-Qahtani was believed to be the right-hand man of the Crown Prince before being removed as a royal court adviser following the uproar over the murder.

"Today we learned from the officials that when Mutreb and al-Qahtani were talking on the phone, there was a third voice coming from the background of al-Qahtani's phone ... Al-Qahtani was transferring the information that he got from Mutreb to that third person".

"According to Turkish officials, they strongly believe that this third voice could belong to the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman but the technical analysis hasn't concluded that yet because Mutreb was doing all these calls from his Saudi mobile phone and technically Turkey needs support to analyse it properly".

Jamal Khashoggi case: All the latest updates
 
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