Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in his new ebook slams slain Washington Submit columnist Jamal Khashoggi, questions his journalistic credentials and criticizes what he calls the compassionate media protection of his brutal assassination in Saudi Arabia.
“He did not need to die, however we have to be clear about who he was — and an excessive amount of within the media wasn’t,” Pompeo wrote in By no means Give an Inch: Preventing for the America I Love. NBC Information acquired a duplicate of the ebook forward of its January 24 launch.
Pompeo, a possible presidential nominee for 2024, ridiculed the media’s portrayal of Khashoggi as “a Saudi Arabian Bob Woodward martyred for boldly criticizing the Saudi royal household by way of op-ed items in The Washington Submit.”
Pompeo, who additionally served as CIA director within the Trump administration, described Khashoggi as an “activist” and claimed he was a journalist “solely to the extent that I and lots of different public figures are journalists.” Generally now we have our lyrics printed, however we additionally do different issues.”
Khashoggi, an outspoken critic of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, disappeared on October 2, 2018 after coming into the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. His disappearance sparked worldwide intrigue and outrage when a Turkish prosecutor revealed that Khashoggi had been strangled or suffocated, dismembered and mutilated.
Pompeo additionally makes an attempt to query Khashoggi’s loyalties in his ebook.
“And as even the New York Instances reported, Khashoggi was aware of the terrorist-supporting Muslim Brotherhood,” Pompeo wrote. Pompeo referred to Khashoggi’s public mourning for Osama bin Laden following the US assassination of the al-Qaeda founder.
“Jamal Kashoggi will not be a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. I affirm it to you,” Khashoggi’s widow, Hanan Elatr Khashoggi, advised NBC Information on Monday.
She stated her husband had a differentiated view of the Muslim Brotherhood, which he was extra intently related to when he was younger. She stated he would condemn her actions in some international locations and welcome it in others. He believed that as a journalist he needed to be near an ideology in an effort to discuss it.
She additionally stated that her husband “all the time condemned” the 9/11 assault and believed the Saudis have been “9/11’s greatest losers” as a result of it made them seem to be they did not have a “tolerant nation.”
No matter he [Pompeo] Mentions about my husband, he does not know my husband. He must be silent and shut up the lies about my husband.
Hanan Elatr Khashoggi, widow of journalist Jamal Khashoggi
Pompeo additionally wrote that whereas Khashoggi’s brutal homicide was “ugly,” it wasn’t “shocking” to him as a result of it was the sort of conduct he’d come to count on from the Center East.
“I had seen sufficient of the Center East to know that this sort of ruthlessness was all too frequent in that a part of the world,” he wrote.
In 2018, as Secretary of State, Pompeo stated that Khashoggi’s assassination “contravened the norms of worldwide regulation,” however nonetheless emphasised a “strategic” relationship with Saudi Arabia.
In 2020, Khashoggi’s household sued Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, accusing him of personally ordering Khashoggi’s brutal execution. Final 12 months, President Joe Biden’s administration stated the crown prince must be shielded from lawsuits in US courts due to his excessive workplace. Noting that this was merely a “authorized resolution,” the State Division “stays silent on the deserves of the current lawsuit and reiterates its unequivocal condemnation of the heinous homicide of Jamal Khashoggi.”
Pompeo’s new ebook comes out as he ponders operating for the White Home. Pompeo has stated that a run by former President Donald Trump in 2024 wouldn’t deter his personal candidacy.
Hanan Elatr Khashoggi stated she was determined “to close up all these people who find themselves publishing books, vilifying my husband and elevating cash for it”.
“No matter he [Pompeo] Mentions about my husband, he does not know my husband. He ought to shut up and shut up the lies about my husband,” she stated. “It is such unhealthy info and the unsuitable info. … That is not acceptable.”