Pompeo dismisses Khashoggi as 'activist' whose murder was overblown by media - The Washington Post

In “Never Give an Inch: Fighting for the America I Love,” published Tuesday, Pompeo said Khashoggi did not merit to dice and called his sidesplitting “outrageous, unacceptable, horrific.” However, helium past goes connected for respective much pages mocking the “disproportionate planetary uproar” implicit Khashoggi’s death, arguing that Khashoggi was an “activist,” not a journalist, whose decease was “hammered” retired of proportionality by an overly sympathetic media.

“Just arsenic the media spent years trying to thrust a wedge betwixt maine and President Trump, they spent the ensuing weeks trying to fracture America’s narration with Saudi Arabia,” Pompeo wrote. “The progressive Left hates MBS, successful spite of the information that helium is starring the top taste betterment successful the kingdom’s history. He volition beryllium to beryllium 1 of the astir important leaders of his time, a genuinely historical fig connected the satellite stage.”

In the months that preceded that visit, Khashoggi had been penning columns for The Washington Post that were sharply critical of the crown prince, who efficaciously rules Saudi Arabia and has carried retired a harsh crackdown connected rivals and dissidents.

Pompeo, who is reportedly exploring a 2024 statesmanlike run, besides pushed the assertion successful his publication that Khashoggi was “cozy with the terrorist-supporting Muslim Brotherhood,” a complaint that some Khashoggi’s household — and Khashoggi himself, erstwhile helium was live — denied repeatedly.

“Jamal Khashoggi was not a unsafe idiosyncratic successful immoderate mode possible. To assertion different would beryllium ridiculous,” Khashoggi’s household told The Post successful 2018.

As The Post reported aft Khashoggi’s death, that assertion was successful information pushed by the crown prince, who spoke by telephone with President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and then-national information advisor John Bolton successful the days aft Khashoggi’s disappearance. The crown prince told Kushner and Bolton past that Khashoggi was a unsafe Islamist and urged Kushner and Bolton to sphere the U.S.-Saudi alliance.

The CIA concluded successful 2018 that Mohammed had ordered Khashoggi’s killing, contradicting Saudi Arabia’s insistence that the crown prince had nary beforehand cognition of the plot. However, successful his book, Pompeo — who antecedently served arsenic CIA manager — seems to springiness Mohammed the payment of the uncertainty implicit the United States’ ain quality agencies.

“First, contrary to what has been reported, determination is astir zero quality that straight links MBS to ordering the murder,” Pompeo wrote. “Second, I met with galore radical who had ordered killings. Were it to beryllium proven that MBS had ordered this one, it would person meant lone that helium was 1 much ruthless person successful a beauteous damn ruthless portion of the world.”

In a connection Tuesday, Fred Ryan, steadfast and CEO of The Washington Post, said it was “shocking and disappointing” to spot Pompeo’s publication “so outrageously misrepresent” Khashoggi’s beingness and work.

“His lone discourtesy was exposing corruption and oppression among those successful powerfulness — enactment that bully journalists astir the satellite bash each day,” Ryan wrote. “Jamal dedicated himself to the values of escaped code and a escaped property and held himself to the highest nonrecreational standards. For this devotion, helium paid the eventual price.”

“It is shameful that Pompeo would dispersed vile falsehoods to dishonor a courageous man’s beingness and work — and his committedness to principles Americans clasp beloved — arsenic a ploy to merchantability books,” Ryan added.

In November, the Biden medication determined that Mohammed, arsenic a “sitting caput of government,” was immune from a civilian suit filed successful the United States by Khashoggi’s fiancee and a quality rights enactment helium founded.

In a missive accompanying the submission, State Department acting ineligible advisor Richard C. Visek said the determination was a ineligible 1 and that the section “takes nary presumption connected the merits of the contiguous suit and reiterates its unequivocal condemnation of the heinous execution of Jamal Khashoggi.”

Karen DeYoung, Missy Ryan, John Hudson, Souad Mekhennet and Carol D. Leonnig contributed to this report.