I'll Personally Go Investigate This In Istanbul-- Really

The Trumpist Regime is working on p.r. with the Saudis to come up with a sanitized version of what happened to Jamal Khashoggi. Remember way back on Tuesday when Trump bellowed, "For the record, I have no financial interests in Saudi Arabia (or Russia, for that matter). Any suggestion that I have is just more fake news (of which there is plenty)?" Here's some "fake news" for you. At a Trump campaign rally in 2015 Trump told the morons who thought they were watching an episode of his sit-com reality show: "I like the Saudis; they are very nice. I make a lot of money with them. They buy all sorts of my stuff-- all kinds of toys from Trump. They pay me millions and hundreds of millions." We have a me, me, me illegitimate president and compulsive liar in the White House.

Yesterday Carlotta Gall and David Kirkpatrick reported for the NY Times that an audio tape (possibly recorded on Khashoggi's Apple watch) proves that Khashoggi's killers were waiting for him when he walked into the Saudi consulate in Istanbul and that he was "dead within 7 minutes." The Saudis and Trump are still floating trial balloons to see which lie about the murder the western public will by-- but the fact remains: "Fifteen days after he entered the consulate in Istanbul and was never seen coming out, the Saudis have yet to give an explanation."

The leaking of such details, on the same day Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was visiting Turkey, reflected an escalation of pressure by the Turkish government on Saudi Arabia and the United States for answers on the fate of Mr. Khashoggi, a prominent dissident journalist who wrote for the Washington Post.

...Top Saudi officials have repeatedly denied any involvement in Mr. Khashoggi’s disappearance-- denials that they repeated to Mr. Pompeo when he visited Saudi Arabia on Tuesday.

A team of 15 Saudi agents, some with ties to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, was waiting for Mr. Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate the moment he arrived, at about 1:15 p.m. on Oct. 2.

After he was shown into the office of the Saudi consul, Mohammad al-Otaibi, the agents seized Mr. Khashoggi almost immediately and began to beat and torture him, eventually cutting off his fingers, the senior Turkish official said.

“Do this outside. You will put me in trouble,” Mr. al-Otaibi, the consul, told them, according to the Turkish official and a report in the Turkish newspaper Yeni Safak, both citing audio recordings said to have been obtained by Turkish intelligence.

“If you want to live when you come back to Arabia, shut up,” one of the agents replied, according to both the official and the newspaper.

As they cut off Mr. Khashoggi’s head and dismembered his body, a doctor of forensics who had been brought along for the dissection and disposal had some advice for the others, according to the senior Turkish official.

Listen to music, he told them, as he put on headphones himself. That was what he did to ease the tension when doing such work, the official said, describing the contents of the audio recording.

Such information would not have been disclosed in Turkey without the consent of the government. Turkish media outlets and newspapers are closely controlled: They are either government-controlled or owned by pro-government business executives. Censors are often present in newsrooms, and reporters and editors take close instructions from officials in the presidency.

The Turkish leaks implicating Saudi officials in the Khashoggi case have followed a distinctive pattern, beginning quickly after his disappearance. The leaks stopped as diplomatic steps to address the matter escalated: King Salman of Saudi Arabia called President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey and sent a high-level delegation while President Trump suggested that he was taking the accusations seriously and sent Mr. Pompeo to Saudi Arabia for answers.

But the leaks appeared to resume on Wednesday after Saudi leaders repeated their denials of involvement to Mr. Pompeo, and Mr. Trump defended the crown prince as having been unfairly accused.

Speaking to reporters at the White House on Wednesday, Mr. Trump said the administration had requested access to recorded evidence from the Turkish authorities “if it exists” and that it “probably does.” Mr. Trump also said he expected to get a full report from Mr. Pompeo when he returned.

Meanwhile, the poor consul has been fired and is "under investigation"-- one of several possible scapegoats. There are also reports that the Saudis have tentatively-- and implausibly-- come up with a "dissident general," Ahmed al-Assiri, a top intelligence officer close to MBS, to put the blame on. This is absurd and must have been Kushner's or Fuck-Up, Jr's idea.

The report from Middle East Eye is gruesome and if you have a weak stomach, I suggest you stop reading right now.

It took seven minutes for Jamal Khashoggi to die, a Turkish source who has listened in full to an audio recording of the Saudi journalist's last moments told Middle East Eye.

Khashoggi was dragged from the consul-general’s office at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul and onto the table of his study next door, the Turkish source said.

Horrendous screams were then heard by a witness downstairs, the source said.

"The consul himself was taken out of the room. There was no attempt to interrogate him. They had come to kill him,” the source told MEE.

The screaming stopped when Khashoggi-- who was last seen entering the Saudi consulate on 2 October-- was injected with an as yet unknown substance.

Salah Muhammad al-Tubaigy, who has been identified as the head of forensic evidence in the Saudi general security department, was one of the 15-member squad who arrived in Ankara earlier that day on a private jet.

Tubaigy began to cut Khashoggi’s body up on a table in the study while he was still alive, the Turkish source said.

The killing took seven minutes, the source said.

As he started to dismember the body, Tubaigy put on earphones and listened to music. He advised other members of the squad to do the same.

“When I do this job, I listen to music. You should do [that] too,” Tubaigy was recorded as saying, the source told MEE.

I bet Trump is trying to figure a way to blame Hillary Clinton, President Obama or the U.S. Department of Justice. That won't work, at least in part because, as the NY Times reported late last night, the American intelligence services are all aware that Trump Family crony and business partner, "Crown Prince" Mohammed bin Salman, was behind the murder of Khashoggi. "Intelligence agencies have growing circumstantial evidence of the prince’s involvement--  including the presence of members of his security detail and intercepts of Saudi officials discussing a possible plan to detain Mr. Khashoggi."