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Till now, the story of Washington Submit journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s homicide was easy: Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was solely chargeable for the October 2018 killing and dismemberment within the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.
However the true story is much extra sophisticated.
It includes the machinations of a corrupt senator who acquired a cache of gold bars to cowl up the Egyptian authorities’s position within the homicide.
The recent revelations are highlighted in “Gold Bar Bob: The Downfall of the Most Corrupt U.S. Senator,” the brand new guide I wrote with New York Submit reporter Isabel Vincent.
We present how Democrat Bob Menendez acted as a mob boss from New Jersey and performed a central position in concealing the reality about one of the crucial horrific murders of a journalist — a everlasting US resident who had championed the Arab Spring, a collection of common uprisings that started in 2010 and unfold all through the Center East.
Nobody else has reported the position of Menendez — who’s serving an 11-year jail sentence for bribery and different felonies — with the Egyptians within the months main as much as the homicide and for years after as head of the highly effective Senate International Relations Committee.
Even the very best assessments the Workplace of the Director of Nationwide Intelligence provided have failed to point out proof MbS definitively ordered the homicide.
The Biden administration’s ODNI report was meant to undercut the earlier Trump administration’s ambiguity over his position within the homicide: “We assess that Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman authorised an operation in Istanbul, Turkey to seize or kill Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi” (emphasis mine).
The US intelligence neighborhood knew Egyptian officers, who had been bribing Menendez, had offered the medicine that killed Khashoggi within the consulate.
The revelation the previous senator was concerned in protecting up the crime got here to mild virtually as an afterthought in a sentencing memo at his trial this yr.
Menendez labored to facilitate his Egyptian paymasters’ position and ultimately conceal it.
The world was prevented from studying about that position as a result of Menendez basically ran a spy operation in opposition to his fellow senators that thwarted any probability of a critical investigation.
The little we all know pertains to the Saudi Arabian kill squad given key intel and coaching in Egypt earlier than stopping in Cairo to select up the medicine they might use to kill Khashoggi in Istanbul.
Did the Egyptians flip an abduction right into a homicide they may leverage by their paid senator, Bob Menendez?
That they had important motive: Khashoggi supported the Muslim Brotherhood, who had been being persecuted by the Egyptian authorities. Khashoggi used his platform to reveal what he alleged had been the regime’s human-rights abuses in opposition to the Muslim Brotherhood.
Egypt was continuously flirting with being sanctioned throughout this era as earlier Senate International Relations Committee chairmen stored restrictions on weapons gross sales to the nation attributable to its lengthy and storied historical past of alleged human-rights violations.
Menendez sat squarely at odds with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and different Trump officers who argued the CIA had no “smoking gun” exhibiting MbS ordered the killing.
The senator accused the Trump administration of telling the world, “You’ll be able to act with impunity and in the end don’t have any penalties.”
But that is precisely what Menendez was doing, getting CIA intel briefs whereas taking conferences, cash and presents from the Egyptians who performed a significant position within the crime.
Menendez performed the media by receiving categorised CIA briefings and turning them into Egyptian propaganda he funneled by retailers like The Washington Submit, MSNBC, CNN and The New York Instances.
These retailers maybe unwittingly did a disservice to human-rights teams: They allowed a convicted felony to dissuade them from protecting the supply of the homicide weapon within the Khashoggi case to today.
Months earlier than Khashoggi’s demise in 2018, Menendez offered the Egyptians with key intelligence associated to our embassy in Cairo.
With the roster of embassy staff, the Egyptians knew the identities of all American safety personnel in Egypt, in addition to potential CIA belongings.
In Might and July, Menendez communicated once more with Main Normal Khaled Ahmed Shawky Osman, assuring him he had efficiently eliminated weapons bans and sanctions on Egypt.
A couple of months later, Khashoggi was killed.
Menendez turned the homicide right into a political weapon. He used it to mount an all-out assault on MbS, reinforcing his claims within the press and following up with legislative maneuvers.
Menendez sponsored payments designed to position Saudi Arabia and the crown prince on a Magnitsky-style sanctions record.
He additionally moved to dam emergency weapons gross sales to the Saudis, instantly opposing the Trump administration and claiming he sought to finish the Saudi-led conflict in Yemen.
Khashoggi’s demise, in impact, grew to become Menendez’s rallying cry, permitting him to set the Egyptians as much as have extra affect in Yemen conflict.
Egyptians had been now ready to promote weapons whereas the Saudis had been preventing to remain off Bob’s sanctions record. This dynamic was setting Egypt as much as change into a regional weapons vendor.
A type of weapons offers after Menendez lifted humanitarian holds was to Russia throughout its assault on Ukraine. (Egypt later claimed the reviews had been mistaken and it was by no means planning on promoting weapons to Vladimir Putin.)
The media purchased the con job with out hesitation. And when questions lastly surfaced, Menendez labored to drown them.
When senators summoned Egyptian intelligence chief Main Normal Abbas Kamel to reply questions concerning the homicide in 2021, the Senate International Relations Committee head sprang into motion.
He used his place to anticipate the inquiries and gave the Egyptians an in depth, rebuttal-filled memo — and met with Kamel in Washington to teach him.
It’s time to re-examine the Khashoggi homicide and every part Menendez did as Senate International Relations Committee chairman whereas he was on the payroll of the Egyptian authorities.
The stakes are excessive, not just for the stability of energy within the Center East but additionally for America’s credibility in the way it handles intelligence, alliances and international coverage.
A false story created for money and presents shouldn’t be allowed to distort world diplomacy and human-rights requirements any longer.
Thomas Jason Anderson is the co-author of “Gold Bar Bob: The Downfall of the Most Corrupt U.S. Senator.”
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