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jamal khashoggi
Calls Grow to Release Transcript of 'Highly Disturbing' Trump-MBS Call After Khashoggi Murder
Rep. Eugene Vindman—who was a White House national security lawyer at the time of the 2019 call—said it “would shock people if they knew what was said.”
Nov 21, 2025
The widow of Jamal Khashoggi on Friday joined Democratic members of Congress in urging President Donald Trump to release the transcript of a phone conversation between the US leader and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman following the journalist's 2018 kidnapping and gruesome murder by Saudi operatives.
Speaking outside the US Capitol in Washington, DC flanked by Democratic members of Congress including Reps. Eugene Vindman of Virginia and Jamie Raskin of Maryland, Hanan Elatr Khashoggi said she is seeking the lawmakers' help "to get the contents of the conversation between President Trump and MBS to get the truth."
“Try as much as you can to save the democratic freedom of America," Khashoggi implored the audience at the gathering. "Do not be a copy of the Middle East dictator countries. We look to America as our role model of modern civilization. Please maintain it.”
Jamal Khashoggi's widow, Hanan Elatr Khashoggi: "I'm seeking the help of Congressmen Vindman and Jamie Raskin, to get the transcript of the conversation between President Trump and Crown Prince MBS to understand the truth."
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— The Bulwark (@thebulwark.com) November 21, 2025 at 8:44 AM
Vindman urged the declassification and release of what he called a "highly disturbing" 2019 call between Trump and MBS—who US intelligence agencies say ordered Khashoggi's murder—the contents of which the congressman claimed “would shock people if they knew what was said.”
At the time of the call, Vindman was serving as a lawyer on Trump's National Security Council, where his duties included reviewing presidential communications with foreign leaders.
"All week, I’ve urged the president to release this transcript," Vindman said during his remarks at Friday's press conference. "Yesterday, I sent him a letter with 37 of my colleagues demanding its release. We will continue pressing until the American people get the truth.”
"Given President Trump’s disturbing and counterfactual defense of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman this week, I felt compelled to speak up on behalf of the Khashoggi family and the country I serve," he added.
On Tuesday, Trump warmly welcomed the crown prince to the White House, calling him a "respected man," designating Saudi Arabia a major non-NATO ally, and announcing the planned sale of F-35 fighter jets to the kingdom.
Trump also threatened an ABC News reporter who attempted to ask MBS about his role in Khashoggi's murder, calling the victim "somebody that was extremely controversial" and whom "a lot of people didn’t like."
“Whether you like him or didn’t like him, things happen," Trump said as MBS smugly looked on, dubiously adding that the crown prince "knew nothing about it."
Responding to Trump's comments, Khashoggi's widow said during Friday's press conference that “there is no justification to kidnap [Khashoggi], torture him, to kill him, and to cut him to pieces."
"This is a terrorist act," she added.
Khashoggi—a Washington Post columnist and permanent US resident—vanished in October 2018 while visiting the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. Turkish officials said he was attacked, suffocated to death, and dismembered with a bone saw inside the consular compound. One Turkish investigator said Khashoggi was tortured in front the Saudi consul-general and dismembered while he was still alive.
Saudi officials initially denied that Khashoggi died in the consulate but later confirmed his death, claiming it resulted from a “fistfight” gone wrong. In 2019, a Saudi court sentenced five people to death and three others to prison terms in connection with Khashoggi’s murder. However, the death sentences were later commuted.
The Central Intelligence Agency concluded that MBS ordered Khashoggi's murder. Saudi officials refuted the CIA's findings. Trump also expressed skepticism at his own intelligence agency's conclusion, which came as the US was selling or seeking to sell billions of dollars worth of arms to Saudi Arabia despite its rampant war crimes in Yemen.
Hopes that former President Joe Biden would take a different approach to Saudi Arabia over war crimes and Khashoggi's murder were dashed as his administration continued selling arms to the kingdom and argued in federal court that MBS should be granted sovereign immunity in a civil case filed by the slain journalist's widow.
Trump has sought closer ties to Saudi Arabia during his second term as he courts up to $1 trillion in investments from the kingdom and works to broker diplomatic normalization between Riyadh and Israel.
The New York Times reported Monday that the Trump Organization—which is run by the president’s two eldest sons—is “in talks that could bring a Trump-branded property" to Saudi Arabia, raising concerns about possible corruption and conflicts of interest.
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Trump Threatens ABC’s Broadcast License Again After Reporter Questions Saudi Crown Prince About Khashoggi Murder
Trump also contradicted a US intelligence assessment that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had ordered the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Nov 18, 2025
President Donald Trump angrily snapped at ABC News reporter Mary Bruce while taking questions alongside Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the White House on Tuesday.
The testy exchange began when Bruce tried to ask the crown prince about a US intelligence assessment concluding that he was responsible for the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
"Who are you with?" Trump demanded to know as Bruce attempted to ask her questions.
"I'm with ABC News, sir," she replied.
"Fake news," Trump said. "ABC, fake news, one of the worst in the business."
Shortly after this, Trump described the slain Khashoggi as "somebody that was extremely controversial."
"A lot of people didn't like that gentleman that you're talking about," Trump said, referring to Khashoggi. "Whether you like him or didn't like him, things happen. But [the crown prince] knew nothing about it. You don't have to embarrass our guest."
In fact, a US intelligence report that was declassified in 2021 concluded that the crown prince personally approved of a plan carried out by Saudi forces to murder Khashoggi after he entered a Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey in 2018.
Shortly after this, Bruce tried to ask the president a question about FBI files related to the late sex offender and longtime Trump friend Jeffrey Epstein, and he again hit her with personal insults.
"It's not the question I mind, it's your attitude," he said. "You're a terrible person and a terrible reporter."
He then threatened to take ABC News completely off the air.
"I think the [broadcast] license should be taken away from ABC because your news is so fake, and it's so wrong," he said. "And we have a great commissioner... who should look at that."
Trump's mention of the "commissioner" was presumably a reference to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr, who earlier this year threatened to pull ABC's broadcast license unless it fired late-night host Jimmy Kimmel, a frequent critic of the president.
Kimmel's show was suspended shortly after Carr made this statement, although he was reinstated days later amid public outcry about government censorship.
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Trump Calls Saudi Prince 'Respected Man' as Serial Human Rights Abuser Ups US Investment to $1 Trillion
The president dismissed a question about the CIA's finding that Mohammed bin Salman ordered the killing of a journalist, saying the writer was someone "a lot of people didn't like."
Nov 18, 2025
A US-based journalist and human rights defender was dismissed as someone "a lot of people didn't like," and the Saudi crown prince who US intelligence experts found had likely ordered the writer's killing was applauded as "one of the most respected people in the world."
That was President Donald Trump's assessment of Washington Post columnist and Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi, who was assassinated in 2018, and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Tuesday at a meeting in the Oval Office of the White House.
Trump and bin Salman met to discuss a range of topics, from a US sale of F-35 fighter jets to Saudi Arabia to agreements on minerals and artificial intelligence.
Bin Salman also told the president he would increase Saudi investment in the US from $600 billion to $1 trillion.
The BBC reported that Trump "bask[ed]" in the $1 trillion pledge, telling the prince it was an "honor" to be his friend and saying the US "very much appreciate[s]" the investment.
"We're doing numbers no one has ever done," Trump said.
ABC News reporter Mary Bruce asked Trump about his family's business interests in Saudi Arabia and questioned whether the bilateral deals presented a conflict of interest, before pointedly asking bin Salman about the Central Intelligence Agency's finding in 2021 that the prince had likely personally ordered the killing of Khashoggi.
"Your royal highness, the US intelligence concluded that you ordered the brutal murder of a journalist," said Bruce. "Why should Americans trust you?"
Trump was visibly angered by the question and demanded to know what outlet Bruce was with before telling her ABC was "fake news" and calling her comment “horrible, insubordinate, and just a terrible question."
"He knew nothing about it," said the president, contradicting the government's findings.
Khashoggi responded to Bruce, saying, "It's really painful to hear anyone losing his life for no real purpose or not in a legal way."
Trump, said former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, will "overlook the murder of Jamal Khashoggi to pad his pockets and boost the bottom line of the military industrial complex."
Following Trump's comments, Democrats on the US House Intelligence Committee posted a link to the federal report that detailed bin Salman's involvement in the killing of Khashoggi.
US Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) called Trump's warm welcome to bin Salman "outrageous and disgusting."
"Tyrants around the world are celebrating," said McGovern. "After all, why would they hesitate to kill dissidents outside of their borders if the Saudis are allowed to get away with it?"
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In Bonanza for Arms Industry, Trump Announces Record $142 Billion Weapons Sale to Saudis
"I like him a lot," Trump said of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, a prolific human rights violator. "I like him too much."
May 13, 2025
In what the White House described as "the largest defense sales agreement in history," U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday announced a deal for prolific human rights violator Saudi Arabia to purchase $142 billion worth of arms from a dozen different American companies.
The White House unveiled the sale as Trump visited Saudi leaders including Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the kingdom's capital city of Riyadh on the first leg of a Mideast tour, with stops also scheduled in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
A fact sheet published by the executive office said the arms sale involves "air force advancement and space capabilities, air and missile defense, maritime and coastal security, border security and land forces modernization, and information and communication systems upgrades."
"Oh, what I do for the crown prince."
Reuters reported that military-industrial complex titans including Lockheed Martin, RTX—formerly Raytheon—Boeing, Northrop Grumman, and General Atomics are involved in the deal. The U.S. and Saudi Arabia reportedly discussed the potential sale of Lockheed Martin F-35 fighter jets to the kingdom, but it remains unclear if the Trump administration will allow the transfer of the highly advanced warplanes.
The agreement is part of a broader Saudi commitment to invest $600 billion in the United States, which the White House said will "strengthen our energy security, defense industry, technology leadership, and access to global infrastructure and critical minerals."
Trump and his relatives, including son-in-law Jared Kushner, enjoy close personal and financial relations with the Saudi royal family, which has poured billions of dollars into their business ventures.
During a signing ceremony, Trump—who apparently fell asleep during the proceedings—joked that the Saudis should invest $1 trillion.
Business leaders including Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk—who is also the de facto Department of Government Efficiency chief—OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, IBM CEO Arvind Krishna, CitiGroup CEO Jane Fraser, and the heads of investment firms including BlackRock, Franklin Templeton, and Blackstone Group also traveled to Saudi Arabia.
Critics including congressional progressives and anti-war groups have long opposed U.S. arms sales to Saudi Arabia, which stands accused of a litany of human rights violations including bombing and starving civilians in Yemen, massacring African migrants, and the 2018 murder of journalist and U.S. resident Jamal Khashoggi.
In 2019, during Trump's first term, Congress passed three bipartisan bills aimed at blocking an $8 billion arms sale to Saudi Arabia and its coalition partner in the U.S.-backed war on Yemen, the United Arab Emirates. Trump vetoed the legislation. His successor, former President Joe Biden, paused U.S. arms transfers to Saudi Arabia and the UAE but subsequently lifted the freeze despite pleas from human rights defenders.
The record arms sale comes amid Trump's effort to broker a diplomatic normalization deal between Saudi Arabia and Israel. The president is no longer demanding that the Saudis normalize relations with Israel as a precondition for a civilian nuclear cooperation deal, a move that reportedly alarmed Israel's far-right government.
Trump lavished praise on the Saudi monarchy in a rambling speech in Riyadh on Tuesday, hailing bin Salman as an "incredible man."
Trump gushes over MBS: "We have great partners in the world, but we have none stronger and nobody like the gentleman right before me. He's your greatest representative. And if I didn't like him, I'd get out of here so fast. He knows me well. I do. I like him a lot. I like him too much."
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— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) May 13, 2025 at 9:01 AM
"We have great partners in the world, but we have none stronger, and nobody like the gentleman that's right before me, he's your greatest representative, your greatest representative," Trump said. "And if I didn't like him, I would get out of here so fast. You know that don't you? He knows me well."
"I do, I like him a lot. I like him too much, that's why we give so much, you know?" the president continued. "Too much. I like you too much!"
"Oh, what I do for the crown prince," he added.
Trump also announced that the U.S. would lift sanctions on Syria and restore relations with the country's new government, a move the peace group CodePink called "good news."
"The bad news is he's making new arms deals with Saudi Arabia, jeopardizing diplomacy with Iran, and continuing to ignore the U.S. and Israel's genocide in Gaza as they drop bombs on hospitals," the group added.
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Trump Offers Key Pentagon Job to Billionaire Whose Firm Trained Khashoggi's Murderers
Stephen Feinberg is co-CEO of Cerberus Capital Management, which owns a company that provided training to members of the hit squad that murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Dec 04, 2024
President-elect Donald Trump has reportedly offered the number-two Pentagon job to a secretive billionaire investor with close ties to the military-industrial complex, potentially introducing additional conflicts of interest to an incoming administration that is set to be rife with corporate executives and lobbyists.
Stephen Feinberg is co-founder and co-CEO of the private equity behemoth Cerberus Capital Management, which owns a firm that provided paramilitary training to members of the elite team that murdered Saudi journalist and U.S. resident Jamal Khashoggi in 2018.
Trump drew global outrage for publicly defending the Saudi regime in the wake of the assassination, even after U.S. intelligence agencies established that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman authorized Khashoggi's murder.
The New York Times reported in 2021 that four Saudis who took part in the 2018 Khashoggi assassination "received paramilitary training in the United States the previous year under a contract approved by the State Department." Tier 1 Group, an Arkansas-based company financed by Cerberus, provided the training.
"The instruction occurred as the secret unit responsible for Mr. Khashoggi's killing was beginning an extensive campaign of kidnapping, detention, and torture of Saudi citizens ordered by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler, to crush dissent inside the kingdom," the Times noted.
"Having this revolving door of people who sit on boards of major defense contractors and then cycle in and out of the Pentagon is a problem that did not begin with Trump, but is a problem nonetheless."
It's not yet clear whether Feinberg intends to accept Trump's offer to serve as deputy defense secretary, but news of the choice prompted speculation that Feinberg could be elevated to the top Pentagon spot as Fox News host Pete Hegseth—the president-elect's nominee for the role—faces skepticism from senators amid new details of the sexual assault allegations against him. (Update: The Times reported Wednesday morning that Trump's support for Hegseth is "wobbling" and he is "openly discussing other people for the job, including Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida.")
Citing an unnamed person familiar with his thinking,
Politico reported that Feinberg is expected to accept the job offer for deputy defense secretary. Feinberg would also have to be confirmed by the Senate.
The Washington Post, which first reported Trump's offer on Tuesday, noted that the private equity billionaire is a major donor to the president-elect and has "investments in defense companies that maintain lucrative Pentagon contracts." The Post observed that Cerberus "has invested in hypersonic missiles" and "previously owned the private military contractor DynCorp."
Matt Duss, executive vice president at the Center for International Policy and a former foreign policy adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), told the Post that "having this revolving door of people who sit on boards of major defense contractors and then cycle in and out of the Pentagon is a problem that did not begin with Trump, but is a problem nonetheless."
"Is he going to be listening to a whole range of constituencies or primarily business constituencies?" Duss asked of Feinberg.
If he accepts the president-elect's offer, Feinberg would join a number of conflict-of-interest-ridden nominees for high-level positions in the incoming Trump administration.
Jeff Hauser, executive director of the Revolving Door Project, characterized Trump's Cabinet picks so far as "chaotic evil" and warned that their conflicts of interest could bring horrible consequences for the American public.
"Corruption is not only bad in and of itself," Hauser told the Institute for Public Accuracy on Tuesday. "It's also a bad thing that makes other terrible things more likely to happen. If you corrupt the enforcement of environmental protection laws, people will be poisoned by the water they drink and air they breathe. If you corrupt the Department of Labor, workplace safety will collapse over time and wage protections will disappear."
"That's what happened under the last Trump administration. This is going to be worse," Hauser warned. "Food safety issues, automobile safety with driverless cars, rail safety—these are all risks that the Trump team will be taking with the lives of ordinary people."
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Biden's New Weapons Deal With Saudi Arabia's Prince Bonesaw
It appears that the decades of costs in arming and defending dictatorships in the Middle East remain entirely lost on the Democratic leadership.
Aug 16, 2024
Perhaps we should be grateful that it took President Biden over four years to fully abandon his campaign pledge to end arms sales to Saudi Arabia, eroding the promise bit by bit before finally announcing at the end of the day on Friday, August 9, that the administration would resume sales of offensive air-to-ground munitions to the Kingdom.
In reality, the ban was merely the last vestige of a long-abandoned policy to isolate and sanction Saudi Arabia for its various, gruesome atrocities and abuses both at home and abroad. In its place, the Biden administration’s courtiers doubled down on their embrace of Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman (MBS), offering up a never-ending basket of concessions and goodies, as the golden ticket for continued U.S. primacy in the Middle East, come what may to everyone and everything else.
What follows will be their rush to the finish line, bestowing on the prince the biggest prize of all — an unprecedented U.S. security guarantee — before the clock runs out on Joe Biden’s presidency.
Cutting off the biggest U.S. weapons purchaser in the world carried well-understood costs of its own, upsetting not only U.S. defense companies deprived of the Saudi cash cow, but also encouraging MBS to retaliate by flaunting closer ties with China and Russia. And so just a few months into the first year of the Biden administration, his national security team walked back the arms embargo, clarifying that they only intended to block “offensive” weapons, not “defensive” ones.
Queries from members of Congress about the distinction between these terms went unanswered. Soon, billions in weapons were flowing, paving the way for a further mending of relations with the Saudi ruler, culminating in the now infamous July 2022 Biden/MBS “fist bump” in Jeddah.
Once the Biden team announced that it too would follow Trump’s lead to make adding Saudi Arabia to the Abraham Accords its number one Middle East foreign policy priority, any lingering concerns about rewarding the Kingdom with new military support despite its widespread horrors in Yemen and at home, or fueling its further belligerence in the region, were swept under the desert sands.
Coupled with national security adviser Jake Sullivan’s open admission of his secondary priorities — cheap oil and keeping China out of the region — the only answer to MBS’s “jump” was to ask “how high?” MBS turned to a hardball game of reverse leverage, not only refusing to open his oil spigot to relieve global oil prices ahead of the 2022 November primaries despite Biden’s pleas, but prominently hosting Chinese President Xi Jinping in a multiday red carpet affair, announcing China would build a civilian nuclear plant and support missile development in the country, and refusing to sanction Russia for its invasion of Ukraine.
And so it was time for the Biden team to bow to MBS’s wishes. The first major concession was to grant the Crown Prince immunity from U.S. prosecution, squashing several lawsuits against him for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, the attempted murder of Saad Aljabri, and the targeted harassment and attacks against Al-Jazeera journalist Ghada Oueiss. The next was for the Biden team to secure the ultimate prize in the Saudi bucket list: a NATO Article 5 treaty level U.S. security guarantee for the Kingdom. Efforts by the Biden team to woo the Crown Prince with a mere aerial security umbrella was not sufficient to persuade him; only a bilateral, treaty level guarantee would work, he made clear.
The Hamas attacks on Israel on October 7, and the nine months of relentless Israeli bombardment and starvation of Gaza’s civilian population that it precipitated, upended these plans. A humiliated Sullivan, who only days before the cataclysmic assault pronounced that the Middle East was “quieter today than it has been in two decades now” and boasted that “the amount of time that I have to spend on crisis and conflict in the Middle East today compared to any of my predecessors going back to 9/11 is significantly reduced,” was forced to shelve the plans for a Saudi/Israeli peace agreement.
Even MBS could not dare to openly endorse Israel in the face of near universal Saudi sympathy for Palestinian suffering.
While a largely AIPAC-funded Congress would likely have supported a U.S. security guarantee for Saudi Arabia in exchange for its joining the Abraham Accords, without this, ratification of a treaty level commitment would be a very hard sell. The Biden team is now considering the idea of delinking the security guarantee, as well as poaching China’s development of the civilian nuclear plant, from normalization with Israel in a “less for less” deal.
Under a proposed “Strategic Alliance Agreement” the U.S. would commit to helping defend Saudi Arabia if it were attacked, in exchange for Saudi granting Washington access to Saudi territory and airspace, prohibiting China from building bases in the Kingdom or pursuing security cooperation with it, and signing a parallel “Defense Cooperation Agreement,” to boost weapons sales, intelligence sharing and strategic planning on terrorism and Iran.
Such a move strips away the cover of “regional peace for Israel” as the motivation for the Saudi security guarantee, more nakedly exposing the underlying motivations driving the Biden team: a stale but cemented worldview that U.S. interests require military hegemony in the Middle East, alongside cheap oil and defense industry profits. It’s hard to discount the siren call of personal profiteering for Biden officials, who will no doubt consider multi-million payouts from the UAE and Saudi, even if they’re not as lucrative as the billions in take-home by Trump officials Stephen Mnuchin and Jared Kushner. (Recall also that Secretary Blinken’s WestExec Advisors, whose client list Secretary Blinken has never disclosed, is now partly owned by Teneo, a firm that works for the MBS controlled Saudi public investment fund.)
It appears that the decades of costs in arming and defending dictatorships in the Middle East — from the mass slaughters of civilians and perpetual war-footings, encouraging destabilizing bellicosity, entrapping our country in zero-sum military conflicts, and undermining U.S. global standing as a credible force for human rights and democracy — remain entirely lost on the Democratic leadership.
With the clock ticking on the expiration of the Biden term as the Gaza war rages on, it’s doubtful that the administration will be able to deliver any expansion of the Abraham Accords or a security agreement for MBS. It’s not even clear MBS will accept these rewards, saving them for the next round of haggling with a new administration. For now, we’ll just have to hope that “Mr. Bonesaw” will show more sense than the Biden administration and avoid any new wars in the region.
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US to Resume Saudi Arms Sales Despite Yemen Atrocities and Khashoggi Murder
"What's changed in Saudi Arabia to justify this?" asked one human rights advocate. "Nothing."
Aug 09, 2024
One rights advocate on Friday said "nothing" has changed to justify a Biden administration decision to lift a ban on U.S. sales of offensive weapons to Saudi Arabia—but the White House has reportedly briefed Congress on the decision to reverse the policy that's been in place for the last three years.
According to Reuters, which cited five sources familiar with the matter, weapons sales could resume as early as next week due to the administration's belief that "the Saudis have met their end of the deal."
President Joe Biden placed the ban on weapons sales in 2021 to pressure Saudi Arabia to end its war against the Houthis in Yemen, who are aligned with Iran.
The war in Yemen has created a humanitarian crisis, with 21.6 million people in need of assistance and protection services, and more than 4.5 million—14% of the population—internally displaced. More than 19,200 civilians, including over 2,300 children, have been killed in airstrikes launched by the Saudi-led coalition.
An administration official told Reuters that there have not been any Saudi airstrikes in Yemen since March 2022, when the Saudis and the Houthis entered a truce brokered by the United Nations.
The decision comes as Hezbollah has vowed to retaliate against Israel following the assassination of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Iran.
But Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), was among those who said the administration aims to secure "future lucrative payouts" for officials including National Security Council adviser Brett McGurk.
"With the Middle East on the brink of a regional war, Gaza's pain worsening, and Americans protesting questionable arms deals, why would the Biden administration choose this moment to double down on weapons for Saudi Arabia?" said HuffPost reporter Akbar Shahid Ahmed in a thread on the social media platform X. "Let's talk about Brett McGurk."
Ahmed explained that in addition to being a major driver of Biden's policy in Gaza, where Israel has been waging a military assault since last October, McGurk has pushed to lift the Saudi weapons ban. The push has come despite concerns over Yemen as well as other human rights violations, including the 2018 murder of U.S. journalist Jamal Khashoggi, which Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman personally approved, according to intelligence reports.
Critics have pointed out to the administration that "the Saudis haven't shown they'll be more responsible with U.S. weapons," said Ahmed, "or addressed concerns about human rights."
"The criticism was largely ignored," he added. "McGurk has grown his influence, tying his Saudi vision to post-war plans for Gaza to craft a message that's now publicly embraced across the administration."
The "long-term implications" of lifting the ban, said Ahmed, include "further implicating the U.S. in potential war crimes after months of American weaponry being used in alarming ways" in Gaza.
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DOJ Urged to Provide Update on Probe of Shireen Abu Akleh's Killing
DAWN's leader slammed the department's "apparent failure to make progress on this investigation, which has fueled Israeli impunity, leading to the systematic and widespread killings of Palestinian journalists."
Jul 29, 2024
An advocacy group founded by an assassinated journalist demanded answers from the U.S. Department of Justice on Monday regarding its investigation of Israeli troops killing American Palestinian reporter Shireen Abu Akleh on May 11, 2022.
"Perhaps the DOJ thinks we will forget about the murder of Shireen Abu Akleh as well as the investigation it promised the American people two years ago, but we have not," said Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), in a statement.
"The DOJ should take responsibility for its apparent failure to make progress on this investigation, which has fueled Israeli impunity, leading to the systematic and widespread killings of Palestinian journalists, at least 108 since Abu-Akleh's 2022 killing."
"Without an interim update on the investigation or a concluding report, it is hard to take seriously U.S. claims that it will vigorously investigate and hold accountable extrajudicial killings of American citizens."
Abu Akleh was fatally shot in the head by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) while covering a raid on the Jenin refugee camp in the illegally occupied West Bank, according to firsthand accounts and various investigations that have been made public. The 51-year-old Al Jazeera journalist was wearing a blue press vest and helmet.
"A beloved and prominent figure in the region, Abu Akleh's killing not only led to prolonged unrest in the West Bank but also became emblematic of Israel's use of lethal force to intimidate and kill journalists," DAWN leaders wrote to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco, and Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Christopher Wray.
As the letter—signed by Whitson and Michael Schaeffer Omer-Man, DAWN's director of research for Israel-Palestine—detailed:
Since the launch of the DOJ investigation, you have not made any information available regarding the nature, scope, and timeline of the probe into the killing of an American citizen by a foreign army, despite prior comments by then State Department spokesperson Ned Price that "those responsible for Shireen's killing should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law." Regrettably, more recent statements coming from U.S. authorities imply that the administration has pushed the investigation to the wayside. At a news briefing on World Press Freedom Day, a State Department spokesperson insisted that Shireen's murder was "unintentional" despite credible reports to the contrary and noted that the U.S. had no further updates on the case.
Some critics have connected Abu Akleh's killing to what the Committee to Protect Journalists last year called a "deadly, decadeslong pattern" by the IDF—which, has slaughtered over 100 journalists and tens of thousands of other Palestinians in the Gaza Strip in Israeli forces' ongoing retaliation for a Hamas-led attack on Israel last October.
"The impunity that Israel has enjoyed for its attacks on the press, including for the murder of Abu Akleh, has made Israeli officials confident that they can kill as many Palestinian journalists as they want with no accountability," DAWN leadership wrote to the DOJ. "Israel's failure to identify the perpetrators, open a criminal investigation, and to cooperate with external investigations further compounds Israel's impunity in targeting journalists in the region."
The letter calls for the DOJ to provide a "timely response" to a series of questions about the department's investigatory steps, Israeli cooperation or lack thereof, and which specific U.S. criminal laws are being considered for the probe.
Schaeffer Omer-Man said that "without an interim update on the investigation or a concluding report, it is hard to take seriously U.S. claims that it will vigorously investigate and hold accountable extrajudicial killings of American citizens."
"The lack of communicable progress also adds to the grief felt by the Abu Akleh family, who filed a formal complaint with the ICC in May 2022 about Abu Akleh's killing by IDF forces," he added, referring to the International Criminal Court.
DAWN was founded by the late Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist and U.S. resident who—according to multiple investigations—was murdered at his home country's consulate in Istanbul, Turkey on October 2, 2018. As Common Dreams reported on the fifth anniversary of his assassination last year, human rights advocates continue to condemn the failure of international officials to hold accountable the people responsible for his death.
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Wyden Probes 'Deeply Concerning' Kushner Firm Payments From Gulf Monarchies
The Senate Finance Committee chair accused the former Trump adviser of "creating significant conflicts of interest and potential counterintelligence risks."
Jun 12, 2024
U.S. Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden on Wednesday announced a new probe into Trump-era White House adviser Jared Kushner's private investment firm Affinity Partners, 99% of whose $3 billion under management comes from foreign sources, mainly the sovereign wealth funds of Gulf dictatorships.
"It is deeply concerning that several Middle Eastern governments are using funds managed by Affinity as a means to pay tens of millions of dollars in fees every year to former President [Donald] Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, creating significant conflicts of interest and potential counterintelligence risks," Wyden (D-Ore.) wrote in a letter to Lauren Key, Affinity's chief financial officer.
"These arrangements also raise concerns that Affinity's exclusively foreign-funded private investment funds are being exploited as a loophole by Mr. Kushner and other former U.S. government officials as a means to avoid complying with the Foreign Agents Registration Act and other U.S. laws requiring U.S. persons to disclose payments from foreign governments," the senator said.
Wyden pointed out that almost all of the money under management by Affinity comes from the sovereign wealth funds of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar:
The largest source of funding for Affinity appears to be a $2 billion investment from the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF)... made in June 2021, shortly after Mr. Kushner left the White House. The remaining $1 billion is split between sovereign wealth funds owned by the governments of the United Arab Emirates and Qatar; Terry Gou, a Taiwanese billionaire and politician who is the founder of the world's largest electronics manufacturer; and another investor whose identity has not been publicly reported.
Wyden said the Saudi PIF buy-in "raises concerns that the investment was a reward for official actions Kushner took to benefit the Saudi government, including preventing accountability for the Saudi government ordering the brutal murder" of journalist and permanent U.S. resident Jamal Khashoggi.
"Private investment funds that take money exclusively from foreign politically exposed investors present heightened national security and other risks," Wyden's letter asserts. "From a national security perspective, the U.S. government has recently highlighted how the opacity and lightly regulated status of private funds can present risk to national security."
Wyden is asking Key to list all of Affinity's clients, how much they've invested, and their annual rates of return. The senator is also seeking information about the company's employees; their roles, responsibilities, and compensation; and "whether the individual meets with or liaises directly with representatives of foreign sovereign wealth funds, including the Saudi PIF, as part of their professional responsibilities."
This isn't the first time that Wyden has questioned Kushner's business ties to Gulf dictatorships. In 2022, the senator sought details regarding possible Qatari involvement in a 2018 real estate deal in which Brookfield Asset Management, a Canadian firm, paid Kushner Companies for a 99-year-lease on 666 5th Avenue, one of the premier properties in the Kushner family portfolio.
Earlier this year, House Democrats led by Reps. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) and Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) urged colleagues to hold hearings over Kushner's "apparent influence peddling and quid pro quos" during the period in which he led critical foreign policy negotiations including over the Abraham Accords agreements between Israel and several Middle Eastern and North African nations.
During his White House tenure, Kushner faced repeated calls to resign as Trump's senior adviser, mostly over concerns about possible conflicts of interest related to his business dealings.
Kushner
said earlier this year that he will not accept any official administration position if Trump—the presumptive 2024 Republican presidential nominee, despite his recent felony conviction and dozens of pending federal and state criminal charges—is reelected.
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Palestinian Journalists Urge US Media to Boycott White House Correspondents' Dinner
"The Biden administration's ongoing support for Israel's genocidal policies implicates it directly in the relentless targeting and massacring of journalists in Gaza, including hundreds of our colleagues and their families."
Apr 05, 2024
Palestinian journalists this week issued an appeal to their U.S. counterparts urging them to boycott the April 27 White House Correspondents' Association dinner over the Biden administration's complicity in Israel's genocide in Gaza.
"In the past six months alone, the Israeli military has executed over 125 Palestinian journalists in Gaza—10% of Gaza's community of journalists," notes the appeal, which is being organized with the help of Adalah Justice Project and the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights. "The year 2023 marked the bloodiest year for journalists worldwide in over a decade, with over 75% of killed journalists targeted by Israel’s attacks on Gaza."
"As Palestinian journalists, we urgently appeal to you, our colleagues globally, with a demand for immediate and unwavering action against the Biden administration's ongoing complicity in the systematic slaughter and persecution of journalists in Gaza," the authors wrote.
"We bear the enormous burden of exposing the realities of Israel's genocidal campaign to the world while living through it in real-time. Israel has killed more than 32,000 Palestinians as we watch on," the journalists said. The death toll in Gaza now exceeds 33,000—mostly women and children—with at least 75,550 other Palestinians wounded since October 7.
The appeal continues:
In Gaza, journalism is synonymous with putting our lives on the line as Israel methodically targets us in its desperate bid to silence our voices and obscure the grim reality of its genocidal actions and its project of ethnic cleansing in Palestine. For Palestinian journalists in Gaza, the blue press vest does not offer us protection, but rather functions as a red target.
The Biden administration's ongoing support for Israel's genocidal policies implicates it directly in the relentless targeting and massacring of journalists in Gaza, including hundreds of our colleagues and their families.
"Western media has played an integral role in manufacturing consent for Israel's ongoing violence against the Palestinian people, while obfuscating U.S. complicity," the journalists continued. "Over the past six months, the mainstream press has become the mouthpiece of the homicidal Israeli regime, promoting dehumanizing anti-Palestinian propaganda and platforming genocide apologists and perpetrators, while simultaneously ignoring, downplaying, and underreporting Israel's war crimes against Palestinians."
"The White House Correspondents' dinner is an embodiment of media manipulation, trading journalistic ethics for access," the appeal argues. "For journalists to fraternize at an event with President [Joe] Biden and Vice President [Kamala] Harris would be to normalize, sanitize, and whitewash the administration's role in genocide."
"As journalists reporting from the belly of the beast, you have a unique responsibility to speak truth to power and uphold journalistic integrity," the Palestinians implored U.S. journalists. "It is unacceptable to stay silent out of fear or professional concern while journalists in Gaza continue to be detained, tortured, and killed for doing our jobs."
The appeal's authors noted that American media professionals have demanded justice for journalists like Palestinian American Al Jazeera reporter Shireen Abu Akleh—who numerous probes found was intentionally killed by Israeli forces in 2022—and Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi Washington Post columnist gruesomely murdered in 2018 by Saudi Arabian operatives in Turkey.
"It is past time journalists take action for journalists in Gaza," the Palestinians asserted. "We call on all journalists of conscience to stand with us and uplift our call to boycott the White House Correspondents' dinner."
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