On Wednesday, State Department spokesperson Robert Palladino said that the U.S. had “no advance knowledge” of Khashoggi’s disappearance.
Facts are beginning to emerge how Mohammed bin Salman, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, ordered that Washington Post contributor Jamal Khashoggi was lured to that country from his home in the U.S. and detained.
According to Washington Post, the 59-year-old Khashoggi has not been seen since he entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2.
Turkish officials have said that they believe Khashoggi was murdered and dismembered inside the building by members of an elite “assassination squad.”
Saudi officials say Khashoggi left through an alternate exit, but have offered no proof to support that contention.
The Post report cited U.S. intelligence intercepts of Saudi officials discussing the plan, as well as interviews with some of Khashoggi’s friends.
They claimed that senior Saudi officials had approached the journalist with offers of protection — including a government job in at least one case — if he would return to his native country.
According to one friend, Khashoggi told him “I don’t trust them one bit” after a conversation with one such official.
Since Khashoggi’s disappearance, the Trump administration has come under increasing pressure to press the Riyadh government for details about his whereabouts.
Earlier Wednesday, a bipartisan group of more than 20 senators instructed Trump to order an investigation into Khashoggi’s disappearance under legislation that authorizes the imposition of sanctions for perpetrators of extrajudicial killings, torture or other gross human rights violations.
“It’s pretty clear to me that something very bad happened to this man,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told Fox News’ “The Story with Martha MacCallum.
“If this happened, if they murdered this journalist who works for The Washington Post in a consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, that’s a game-changer for me.”
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said national security adviser John Bolton and presidential senior adviser Jared Kushner spoke on Tuesday to the crown prince about Khashoggi.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo then had a follow-up call with the crown prince to reiterate the U.S. request for information and a thorough, transparent investigation.
On Wednesday, State Department spokesperson Robert Palladino said that the U.S. had “no advance knowledge” of Khashoggi’s disappearance.
Read more: Fox News
