{"id":220040,"date":"2019-06-23T22:02:23","date_gmt":"2019-06-24T02:02:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=220040"},"modified":"2019-06-23T22:02:23","modified_gmt":"2019-06-24T02:02:23","slug":"trump-puts-saudi-arms-sales-above-khashoggi-inquiry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2019\/06\/23\/trump-puts-saudi-arms-sales-above-khashoggi-inquiry\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump puts Saudi arms sales above Khashoggi inquiry"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Khashoggi, who had been living in the U.S., criticized the Saudi royal family in his writings. (File Photo By POMED – Mohammed bin Salman’s Saudi Arabia: A Deeper Look, CC BY 2.0<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

WASHINGTON \u2014 President Donald Trump brushed aside the grisly killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, saying his death has already been investigated and a Saudi pledge to spend billions of dollars on U.S. military equipment \u201cmeans something to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

He spoke just days after an independent U.N. report revealed new details of the Saudi journalist’s death and apparent dismemberment at the hands of Saudi agents. It said there was \u201ccredible evidence\u201d that warranted further investigation into the possible involvement of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and called for an FBI investigation.<\/p>\n

Trump, in an interview on NBC’s \u201cMeet the Press,\u201d said the subject of Khashoggi \u201cdidn’t come up\u201d when he and Salman spoke on Thursday, the day after the report was released.<\/p>\n

The president said the Middle East is a \u201cvicious, hostile place\u201d and that Iran and other countries in the region are also guilty of the type of behaviour Saudi Arabia has been accused of engaging in. He said the slaying of Khashoggi has already been \u201cheavily investigated.\u201d<\/p>\n

U.S. intelligence agencies previously had concluded that the crown prince ordered that Khashoggi be killed when he went to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, on Oct. 2 to pick up documents to marry his Turkish fiancee.<\/p>\n

Khashoggi, who had been living in the U.S., criticized the Saudi royal family in his writings.<\/p>\n

Trump declined last year to penalize Saudi Arabia over the killing.<\/p>\n

In the wide-ranging interview, which was taped Friday and broadcast Sunday, he stressed the economic benefits of selling arms to the Saudis.<\/p>\n

\u201cSaudi Arabia is a big buyer of (American) product. That means something to me. It’s a big producer of jobs,\u201d the president said.<\/p>\n

Trump said he’s \u201cnot like a fool\u201d that will refuse to do business with the U.S. ally, arguing that the kingdom will turn to U.S. rivals China and Russia if Washington refuses to sell arms to the Saudis.<\/p>\n

\u201cTake their money. Take their money,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n

The Senate voted last week to block the Trump administration from selling arms to Saudi Arabia. Trump has promised to veto the measure.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON \u2014 President Donald Trump brushed aside the grisly killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, saying his death has …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":186229,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-220040","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-news-w","mauthors-darlene-superville","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220040","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=220040"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220040\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":220041,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220040\/revisions\/220041"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/186229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=220040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=220040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=220040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}