NEW YORK (AP) — President Donald Trump denounced ABC News’ Mary Bruce as a “terrible reporter” Tuesday and threatened the network’s license to broadcast after she asked him three sharp questions at the White House.
And many Americans felt shame at cosiness displayed by their president toward this man who would be king. I am reproducing Michael D. Sellers Substack:
Yesterday the US President, Donald J. Trump welcomed to the White House Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, lavishing VIP treatment on the man who is credibly believed to have orchestrated the murder of U.S.-based journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018 inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey. Let’s recall, in some detail, what exactly happened to Khashoggi — and what evidence connects bin Salman to the killing. Some of what follows is disturbing. It’s worth a deeper look in order to understand the depths of the shame of today’s events at the White House.
What Happened to Jamal Khashoggi
The Dissident Who Walked Into a Consulate
Jamal Khashoggi wasn’t some fringe figure. He’d been part of the Saudi establishment for decades — adviser to the royal court, editor of major newspapers, a man who knew the system from the inside. Over time he drifted into dissent: criticizing the crown prince’s authoritarian turn, the Yemen war, and the crackdown on dissent. By 2017 he had left Saudi Arabia and was living in Virginia, writing columns for The Washington Post.
In 2018 he planned to marry his fiancée, Hatice Cengiz, a Turkish academic. For that, he needed paperwork from the Saudi consulate in Istanbul — proof that he was divorced.
September 28, 2018: Khashoggi goes to the consulate once; he’s told to come back on October 2 to pick up the finalized documents.
In the days between: Two private Gulfstream jets bring a rotating cast of Saudi officials and security officers to Istanbul. Turkish and Western media later identify them as a 15-man team including intelligence officers, royal guards, and a forensic doctor.
Whatever was going to happen was planned in that window.
The Trap Is Set
On the morning of October 2, 2018, members of the Saudi team arrive at the consulate and at the residence of the consul general, Mohammad al-Otaibi. Turkish staff are abruptly told to take the day off. Security cameras inside the consulate are later reported to have been disabled or their footage removed.
Around lunchtime:
CCTV captures several Saudi operatives entering the consulate.
Among them is Maher Mutreb, a close security aide who frequently traveled with Mohammed bin Salman and was photographed at his side on previous trips to the U.S. and Europe.
Shortly after 1 p.m., Khashoggi walks up to the consulate with Hatice Cengiz. The building looks ordinary: a flag, a steel gate, a guard. He leaves his two phones with her and walks in, expecting a brief appointment.
He never comes out.
Cengiz waits. Hours pass. The consulate closes. She calls friends and Turkish officials. A missing-person report is filed that evening. By then, whatever happened inside is over.
Inside the Consulate: The Killing
We don’t have video of the killing. What we have are:
Turkish intelligence audio recordings from bugs inside the consulate.
Forensic evidence from the crime-scene search.
The travel records and identities of the 15-man team.
Leaks to Turkish and Western media from officials who heard or read the transcripts.
Pieced together, they give a chilling narrative.
According to Turkish officials and multiple media reports based on the audio:
Khashoggi is brought to an office near the consul general’s.
He is told to return to Saudi Arabia. He refuses.
He is then overpowered, and a plastic bag or similar device is placed over his head. His reported last words: “I’m suffocating… take this bag off my head, I’m claustrophobic.”
He is strangled and dies within minutes.
The team had not come to negotiate. Turkish and UN investigators concluded this was a premeditated execution, not an interrogation gone wrong.
The Forensic Doctor and the Dismemberment
Among the 15 was Dr. Salah al-Tubaigy, a forensic pathologist associated with the Saudi Interior Ministry. Turkish leaks say he brought a bone saw. On the audio, he is reported to tell colleagues to put on headphones and listen to music while he dismembers the body.
This is not Hollywood horror; it’s bureaucracy meeting brutality:
A government doctor.
Specialized equipment.
A team flown in on government-controlled jets.
According to Istanbul’s chief prosecutor, Khashoggi was strangled immediately upon entering, and his body was then dismembered and “disposed of.” No remains have ever been found.
Turkish investigators later floated two main theories for disposal:
Acid – biological traces in the consulate garden suggested his body may have been dissolved in acid.
Cremation – a large, newly-built oven at the consul general’s residence may have been used for incineration.
Whichever is true, the intent was clear: erase the body, erase the crime.
The Cover-Up
While this was unfolding, Riyadh tried to run a classic disinformation play.
At first, Saudi officials insisted Khashoggi had left the consulate by a back door.
When Turkish authorities began leaking evidence, Saudi Arabia shifted to a story about a “rogue operation” that went bad during a botched attempt to return him to the kingdom.
Eventually they admitted he had been killed in a premeditated operation — but insisted the crown prince knew nothing about it.
Turkey, meanwhile, kept turning the screw with controlled leaks: snippets from the audio, details on the hit team, CCTV images, the flight plans.
International outrage followed:
The UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions, Agnès Callamard, concluded in 2019 that this was a “deliberate, premeditated execution” for which Saudi Arabia bore state responsibility.
An Istanbul court later tried 26 Saudi suspects in absentia, including senior officials close to bin Salman.
Saudi Arabia staged its own trial, behind closed doors, acquitting top aides and sentencing a handful of operatives. The proceedings were widely condemned as a whitewash.
How the Trail Leads to Mohammed bin Salman
The Saudi line has always been that Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) had no prior knowledge of the operation. The U.S. intelligence community — and most serious investigators — don’t buy that.
Here’s why.
1. The Hit Team’s Composition
Several members of the 15-man team belonged to elite units that effectively answer to MBS:
Royal Guard and close protection: Maher Mutreb, seen traveling with MBS and photographed next to him on foreign trips, is part of the crown prince’s inner security circle.
“Tiger Squad” link: Reporting by Middle East Eye and others identified some of the team as part of a clandestine unit allegedly used by MBS to silence dissidents.
The idea that such a unit would freelance a murder of this magnitude, involving a prominent Washington Post columnist, without higher authorization is at odds with how Saudi security services actually operate.
2. The Planes and the Chain of Command
The operatives flew on jets owned by Sky Prime Aviation, a company that had been transferred to Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund — the Public Investment Fund (PIF) — which is controlled by MBS.
This isn’t conclusive on its own, but it’s one more data point: state-controlled aircraft attached to funds overseen by the crown prince, used for a covert operation on foreign soil.
3. The Aide on the Skype Call
According to Turkish and Reuters reporting, Saud al-Qahtani — a powerful royal court adviser and one of MBS’s closest enforcers — was patched into the consulate via Skype as Khashoggi was being held. He allegedly ordered the team to “bring me the head of the dog.”
Qahtani doesn’t freelance. He is an extension of MBS’s will. The UN investigator later wrote that there was “credible evidence” warranting investigation of MBS and Qahtani for potential liability.
Qahtani was publicly fired after the killing, but there has never been a transparent accounting of his fate. By all accounts he remains protected.
4. Pattern: What Happened to Other Critics
Khashoggi’s murder didn’t come out of nowhere. It fit a pattern:
Mass arrests of businessmen, royals, and clerics in 2017’s Ritz-Carlton “anti-corruption” purge.
Abduction of Lebanese prime minister Saad Hariri in Riyadh.
Kidnapping and forced repatriation of Saudi dissidents abroad, including princes living in Europe.
The message was clear: MBS’s Saudi Arabia does not merely tolerate dissent; it hunts it.
5. The U.S. Intelligence Assessment
In February 2021, the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) released a declassified assessment. Its key line:
“We assess that Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman approved an operation in Istanbul, Turkey to capture or kill Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.”
The assessment cited:
MBS’s “absolute control” over security and intelligence operations.
The direct involvement of his key aides and bodyguards.
The unlikelihood that such an operation could occur without his authorization.
The CIA had reportedly reached the same conclusion back in late 2018.
This is not speculative NGO rhetoric; it is the formal view of the U.S. intelligence community.
6. Saudi Arabia’s Own Admissions
Saudi Arabia has never admitted that MBS ordered the killing. But they have conceded:
The operation was “premeditated.”
Senior officials around the crown prince were involved.
The death occurred inside the consulate at the hands of Saudi agents.
MBS himself has said he bears “responsibility” because it happened “under my watch,” while denying he gave the order.
Why This Matters When Trump Rolls Out the Red Carpet
Against that backdrop, what happened at the White House yesterday is not just another diplomatic photo-op.
Trump didn’t merely host a controversial ally. He:
Praised Mohammed bin Salman’s leadership and downplayed Khashoggi’s murder, suggesting such things “happen.”
Announced or advanced major arms and investment deals — including prospective sales of F-35 stealth fighters and a new Strategic Defense Agreement.
Symbolically rehabilitated a man the U.S. intelligence community has publicly assessed as having approved an operation to kill a U.S.-based journalist.
Jamal Khashoggi walked into a consulate in Istanbul thinking he was handling a paperwork errand on the way to his wedding.
On the audio, his last words are a plea for air.
Yesterday, the man U.S. intelligence says approved that operation stood on the White House lawn, smiling for the cameras, as an American president celebrated him with a military flyover and a red carpet.
That’s the arc.
Thank you for your support. Your support though free and (especially) paid subscriptions makes Deeper Look possible. I will continue to monitor and report — and I thank you for being part of what I’m trying to do here. Many thanks.
So far this year 330 executions have taken place in Saudi Arabia, one of these was another journalist:
June 14, 2025 3:58 PM EDT
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Washington, D.C., June 14, 2025 — Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Interior announced the Saturday execution of prominent Saudi journalist Turki al-Jasser, who had been detained for seven years on charges of treason, foreign collaboration, funding terrorism, and endangering national security and unity.
Saudi authorities arrested al-Jasser in 2018 and seized his devices, believing that he was behind an X, then known as Twitter, account that documented allegations of corruption within the Saudi royal family. Saudi officials have been accused of spying on Saudi X users and journalists, including Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, who was murdered in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, in October 2018.
“We are outraged by Saudi Arabia’s execution of prominent journalist Turki al-Jasser, who was detained for seven years because the regime believed he reported on allegations of corruption within the Saudi royal family,” said CPJ Chief Program Officer Carlos Martínez de la Serna. “The international community’s failure to deliver justice for Jamal Khashoggi did not just betray one journalist; it emboldened de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to continue his persecution of the press, and today, another Saudi journalist has paid the price.”
Al-Jasser was a prominent Saudi journalist who wrote on sensitive issues, including women’s rights, the Arab Spring, and corruption. He contributed to the now-shuttered Saudi newspaper Al-Taqrir and his personal blog between 2013 and 2015.
While detained, Al-Jasser was subjected to enforced disappearance, denied access to legal representation and his family, and allegedly endured multiple forms of physical and psychological torture.
In 2024, Saudi Arabiaexecuted 330 people — nearlydouble the 172 recorded the previous year and the highest in decades. So far in 2025, over100 executions have already taken place.
U.N. experts and rights groups have repeatedly called on the Saudi government to halt executions, raising serious concerns about due process.
CPJ’s email to the Saudi embassy in Washington, D.C., requesting comment about al-Jasser’s execution did not receive an immediate response
The revelation of the crown prince’s photograph inside Epstein’s mansion has sparked a storm of criticism on social media.
Many social media users expressed their lack of surprise, with one remarking on another photograph of Mohammed bin Salman with George Nader, another convicted criminal and serial paedophile.
“Whenever Mohammed Bonesaw isn’t orchestrating the murder of journalists (a reference to the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi) and dissolving their remains in acid, he seems to enjoy posing for photos with pedophiles.”
Meanwhile, families of 9/11 victims—who have spent decades trying to hold the Saudi state accountable in court—reacted with fury that the de facto Saudi ruler was being feted in the Oval Office just as their lawsuit against the kingdom finally moves toward trial.
Hanan Elatr Khashoggi and Rep. Eugene Vindman (D-Va.) stand outside the US Capitol in Washington, DC on November 21, 2025 with a sign reading “RELEASE THE TRANSCRIPT” of President Donald Trump’s phone conversation with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman following the 2018 murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
(Photo: Rep. Eugene Vindman/X)
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.”
Retired, living in the Scottish Borders after living most of my life in cities in England. I can now indulge my interest in all aspects of living close to nature in a wild landscape. I live on what was once the Iapetus Ocean which took millions of years to travel from the Southern Hemisphere to here in the Northern Hemisphere. That set me thinking and questioning and seeking answers.
In 1998 I co-wrote Millennium Countdown (US)/ A Business Guide to the Year 2000 (UK) see https://www.abebooks.co.uk/products/isbn/9780749427917
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