I am sick over right wing pundits getting the word out, spreading lies sub rosa about the character of the Saud national Jamal Khashoggi who became a US permanent resident as he worked as a journalist for the Washington Post. Somehow these Trumpians think that if they can besmirch his reputation, then it would somehow be okay for Sauds to have murdered him when he entered the Saud embassy in Istanbul to pick up documentation proving his divorce, as his fiancee waited for him outside, on the 2nd of October 2018.

As per the 10/18/18 Washington Post by Robert Costa and Karoun Demirjian,”Hard-line Republicans and conservative commentators are mounting a whispering campaign against Jamal Khashoggi that is designed to protect President Trump from criticism of his handling of the dissident journalist’s alleged murder by operatives of Saudi Arabia — and support Trump’s continued aversion to a forceful response to the oil-rich desert kingdom.”

Jamal Khashoggi (Illustration by Alex Fine for The Washington Post)”In recent days, a cadre of conservative House Republicans allied with Trump has been privately exchanging articles from right-wing outlets that fuel suspicion of Khashoggi, highlighting his association with the Muslim Brotherhood in his youth and raising conspiratorial questions about his work decades ago as an embedded reporter covering Osama bin Laden, according to four GOP officials involved in the discussions who were not authorized to speak publicly.”

“Those aspersions — which many lawmakers have been wary of stating publicly because of the political risks of doing so — have begun to flare into public view as conservative media outlets have amplified the claims, which are aimed in part at protecting Trump as he works to preserve the U.S.-Saudi relationship and avoid confronting the Saudis on human rights.”

“The conservative push comes as Saudi government supporters on Twitter have sought in a propaganda campaign to denigrate Khashoggi as a supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist movement once tolerated but now outlawed in Saudi Arabia as a terrorist organization.”

“Trump wants to take a soft line, so Trump supporters are finding excuses for him to take it,” said William Kristol, a conservative Trump critic. “One of those excuses is attacking the person who was murdered.”

“Several Trump administration aides are aware of the Khashoggi attacks circulating on Capitol Hill and in conservative media, the GOP officials said, adding that aides are being careful to not encourage the disparagement but are also doing little to contest it.”

Link to entire Washington Post Article 

Jamal Khashoggi’s final appeal is his call for free expression in the Arab world which reflects a lifelong passion.

[Read Khashoggi’s last column for The Post before his disappearance in Arabic]

Here is the rest of the story…

On October 17, 2018, Karen Attiah for the Washington Post published a forward to its murdered colleague’s final column that he wrote for the Washington Post, “Jamal Khashoggi: What the Arab world needs most is free expression”