Releasing his new memoir “Never Give and Inch” Jan. 24, 59-year-old former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, rumored as a 2024 presidential candidate, the press ripped Pompeo for raising questions about the late Washington Post contributor Jamal Khashoggic. Khashoggii entered the Saudi embassy in Istanbul Oct. 2, 2018 and never came out, rumored tortured, murdered and dismembered by a 15-man Saudi hit squad ordered by 38-year-old Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Pompeo tried to make a point about Khashoggi that he wasn’t really a journalist but an activist posting articles critical of Bin Salman on the Washington Post. News of Khashoggi’s state-ordered murder was take harshly by the journalist community, despite the fact that Khashoggi was a political activist opposed to Bin Salman’s rule, often publishing pieces critical of Bin Salman’ rise to power.
Pompeo knew better that most about Khashoggi’s dossier since he served as CIA Director before running the State Department after the resignation of 70-year-old former Exxon-Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson. Pompeo ran the State Department until Trump left office Jan. 20, 2021, generally receiving good reviews except from Democrats. When Pompeo ran the State Department the White House has strong relations with the Russian Federation, Communist China and North Korea. Only a short time in office, 80-year-old President Joe Biden and his 60-year-old Secretary of State Antony Blinken trashed the U.S. decades-old, historic relations with U.S. adversaries. Biden and Blinken went to war against the Russian Federation, paying the Ukraine government to fight a bloody proxy war against the Kremlin. Kremlin officials see the war as one between the U.S.-NATO and the Kremlin.
When it came to Khashoggi, the Democrat Party used Khashoggi’s death to slam 76-year-old former President Donald Trump, all because he didn’t break off diplomatic relations with Riyadh. U.S. press said Khashoggi was “a Saudi Arabian Bob Woodward who was martyred for bravely criticizing the Saudi royal family through his opinion articles in the Washington Post,” Pompeo said in his book. Pompeo said Khashoggi was a journalist only “to the extent that I and many other public figures are journalists. We sometimes get our writing published but we also do other things,” Pompeo said in his book. Pompeo upends the press narrative that Khashoggi was part of the global journalist community, when, in fact, he was a ex-pat Saudi activist, often slamming the Royal family. Pompeo has sympathy for Khashoggi’s family and brutal murder but thinks the U.S. press exaggerates Khashoggi’s journalist credentials.
U.S. press didn’t like when Pompeo pointed out his book that Khashoggi was sympathetic toward the Muslim Brotherhood, the terrorist group outlawed in Egypt by 68-year-old President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi. No one in the U.S. press wants to admit that Khashoggi, for better or worse, antagonized Bin Salman’s Saudi government before his abduction and liquidation. “And even as the New York Times reported, Khashoggi was cozy with the terrorist-supporting Muslim Brotherhood,” Pompeo said in his book. Khashoggi was critical of the U.S. killing Osama bin Laden May 2, 2011, apparently publicly mourning his death. “Jamal Khashoggi is not part of the Muslim Brotherhood. I confirm it to you:” said Kahashoggi’s widow, Hanan Elair Khashoggi.” Pompeo never said Khansoggi was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. He was estranged from his former wife actively trying to remarry his girlfriend.
At the time Khashoggi visited the Saudi embassy in Istanbul Oct. 2, 2018, he was seeking a divorce papers from Hannan Elair, seeing to marry his Turkish girl friend Hatice Cenziz, something not reported by the U.S. press. Why the U.S. press quotes Khashoggi’s widow without mentioning his Turkish fiancée is anyone’s guess. Looking to slam Pompeo, the press looks to discredit Pompeo anyway possible. “I’d seen enough of the Middle East to know that this kind of ruthlessness was all too routine in that part of the world,” Pompeo wrote. Pompeo said in 2018 that Khashoggi’s killing “violates the norms of international law,” but the U.S. continue to have a “strategic” relationship with the Kingdom. When Biden visited Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman July 15, 2022, he acknowledged relations to Riyadh continued regardless of Khashoggi’s murder. U.S. press ignored Biden’s meeting.
Biden’s White House has consistently endangers U.S. national security, especially funding a proxy war using Ukrainian troops to battle the Kremlin. No president in U.S. history has done more damage to U.S. foreign policy than Biden. Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said last week that U.S.-Russian relations were at a low point in U.S. history. Biden’s relations with China aren’t much better, with 69-year-old Chinese President Xi Jinping threatening to take over Taiwan. Biden told Beijing he would defend Taiwan with U.S. troops, violating the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act. When it comes to North Korean, 38-year-old dictator Kim Jon-un continues to develop intercontinental ballistic missiles. Biden foreign relations are a complete disaster yet if you ask the press, there’s nothing wrong. All the press did was criticize Trump for promoting peace and prosperity.
About the Author
John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.
