Mike Pompeo Eats Saudi Arabia's Bullshit With a Smile on His Face
It’s been two weeks since Washington Post reporter Jamal Khashoggi’s disappearance and presumed murder at the hands of Saudi operatives—ones whom, evidence strongly suggests, were working at the behest of Saudi Prince Mohammad bin Salman. But despite all signs pointing a targeted assassination meant to silence an outspoken journalist, the State Department has managed to continuously bungle their handling of Khashoggi’s death, in a bizarre—but ultimately telling—example of the United State’s grotesque fealty to an ostensible “ally” with whom it has been financially and militarily entangled for years.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo paid a brief visit to Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, where he was all smiles as he parroted the royal family’s denials about knowing anything about Khashoggi’s disappearance from a Saudi facility in Turkey. “The Saudi leadership strongly denied any knowledge of what took place in their consulate in Istanbul,” Pompeo told CNN.
While Pompeo was busy laughing—literally—alongside the man suspected of being ultimately behind Khashoggi’s death, State Department Spokesperson Heather Nauert was busy grinning for a touristy photo outside the Saudi Royal court.