Never one to miss a chance to endorse a tyrant, President Donald Trump welcomed Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to the White House last month.
Of course, the Saudis are great pals of our president, spending “at least $615,422 at Trump properties” during his first administration, according to the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability.
The Saudi-backed, greenwashing LIV golf tour also scheduled four tournaments at Trump properties, where money-over-morals golfers could play to normalize Saudi human rights abuses.
During his inflated/deflated property assessment fraud trial in New York, Trump bragged in a deposition that no assessment could be too high because a Saudi Arabian buyer would pay that price.
Presiding Judge Arthur Engoron saw the remark and footnoted his ruling: “This statement may suggest influence buying more than savvy investing.”
When the Saudis murdered and butchered Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi – a long-time U.S. resident, two of whose four children are American citizens – Trump’s support remained unshaken.
“I saved [Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s] ass,” he told Bob Woodward for the latter’s book Rage.
And he was still defending the crown prince’s involvement in Khashoggi’s killing during the latter’s recent state visit.
U.S. intelligence communities – since gutted by the president who never lets facts interfere with his delusions and biases – said Khashoggi’s murderers were acting under bin Salman’s orders.
Trump took the crown prince’s side back then, and reiterated that last month, claiming, “A lot of people didn’t like [Khashoggi].” Trump chastised a reporter for asking a question about the killing that “embarrassed” his murderous guest and brushed off the killing with, “Things happen.”
In appreciation of Trump’s support, Saudi Arabia loaned Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner $2 billion after Trump’s first term ended.
In June, another Saudi journalist, Turki al-Jasser, was executed.
At that time, according to The Guardian, Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of Dawn, a pro-democracy group founded by Khashoggi, commented:
“With Jasser’s execution, Mohammed bin Salman has once again shown us that he remains a vindictive, thin-skinned tyrant who kills people who criticize him.
“He has weaponized the Saudi judiciary to prosecute and execute a Saudi man under the country’s bogus counter-terrorism law exclusively because of his critical commentary about the country on social media. Western governments are eager to pretend that MBS has morphed into some kind of reputable statesman, but it’s hard to reform a sociopathic autocrat with zero domestic guardrails.”
A “vindictive, thin-skinned tyrant” … who has weaponized the judiciary?
No wonder Trump likes the Saudi approach to inhuman rights as his administration ignores the Constitution to deny detained people due process and uses the full force of government to attack political enemies and comedic critics.
In October, Matthew Lee of the Associated Press forecast bin Salman’s trip as “a significant part of the push Trump has made to restore relations with Gulf Arab nations incensed by Israel’s attack on Hamas leaders in Qatar as they discussed a U.S. ceasefire proposal. The first major foreign trip of Trump’s second term was to Saudi Arabia, where he expressed hope that the countries would further cement their commercial and business ties and suggested that increased military cooperation was also in the cards.”
A side trip on that jaunt was to Qatar, where Trump was given a $400 million dollar airplane, which will cost taxpayers more than a billion dollars to fit properly for usage.
Amnesty International reports that in Qatar:
“Migrant workers, including domestic workers, continued to face human rights abuses, including wage theft, harsh working conditions and poor access to redress mechanisms. … The right to freedom of expression remained curtailed. Women and LGBTI people continued to face discrimination in law and practice.”
While his supporters claim that bad ol’ liberals are trying to impose Sharia Law [which opposes much of what liberals endorse] on this country, Trump is fully satisfied with its implementation elsewhere as long as he gets a cut from the oppressors.
