With the CIA now firmly pointing the finger for the murder of Saudi dissident journalist and Washington Post reporter Jamal Khashoggi at Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, it appears that at least one Trump regime official has resigned over the White House's complicity in Khashoggi's grisly death.
A top White House official responsible for American policy toward Saudi Arabia resigned on Friday evening, a move that may suggest fractures inside the Trump administration over the response to the brutal killing of the dissident Jamal Khashoggi.
The official, Kirsten Fontenrose, had pushed for tough measures against the Saudi government, and had been in Riyadh to discuss a raft of sanctions that the American government imposed in recent days against those identified as responsible for the killing, according to two people familiar with the conversations. Specifically, she advocated that Saud al-Qahtani, a top adviser to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, be added to the list, and he ultimately was.
The exact circumstances of her departure are murky, and it is unclear whether her advocacy for a hawkish response to the killing angered some in the White House. When she returned to Washington, according to the two people, she had a dispute with her bosses at the National Security Council, where she had served as the director for the Persian Gulf region.
A representative for the council declined to comment. Ms. Fontenrose did not reply to messages seeking comment.
It gets worse, as the Turks are understandably pissed about having the Saudis run US hit squads in their back yard, and the White House is now trying to appease them as well.
President Donald Trump on Saturday declined to say whether American intelligence officials had implicated Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, following reports the CIA had concluded the crown prince ordered Khashoggi's assassination.
"They haven’t assessed anything yet. It’s too early,” the president told reporters when asked if the CIA had assessed the crown prince's involvement, according to a pool report.
“It’s a horrible thing that took place, the killing of a journalist,” Trump said. “We’ll be having a very full report over the next two days, probably Monday or Tuesday.”
Trump said that report will convey what members of the intelligence community "think the overall impact was, and who caused it, and who did it.” Trump also said he spoke with CIA Director Gina Haspel earlier in the day.
Upon departing the White House on Saturday morning for a trip to survey damage from wildfires in California, Trump heralded Saudi Arabia as a “spectacular ally” — two days after his administration leveled sanctions against 17 Saudi officials for Khashoggi's death. The president demurred on any potential involvement by the crown prince.
“As of this moment we were told that he did not play a role,” Trump told reporters. “We’re going to have to find out what they have to say.”
Trump also rejected a Thursday report by NBC News alleging that his administration is considering extraditing exiled Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen in the hope of dissuading Turkish President Recep Erdogan from punishing the Saudis for Khashoggi’s murder.
“It’s not under consideration,” Trump said, adding that “we’re having a very good moment with Turkey,” and citing Erdogan’s release of American pastor Andrew Brunson in October.
Needless to say, this is a full-blown diplomatic nightmare and Trump is bending over backwards to make both Riyadh and Ankara happy, while each one would love for the US relationship with the other to crumble. It also means somebody at the CIA definitely wants the Trump regime to dump the Crown Prince as the result of the leaked report late last week.
Trump is dithering on the report's contents, but it's pretty clear that the Crown Prince is responsible. What happens from here is anyone's guess. Say what you will about the CIA leaking for political reasons, but Trump has gone out of his way to piss off the intelligence community, and they were always able to make his life miserable.
They did just that this week. There's a lesson there for Trump.
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