Mike Pompeo repeatedly dodged Fox & Friends’ questions about the guilt of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.
The 11:20 minute chat with Pompeo was mostly chummy. There was no skepticism, for example, when Pompeo exploited the recent terror attack in France as an excuse to fear monger about Mexican immigrants trying to enter the U.S.
But at 4:34, cohost Ainsley Earhardt started what turned out to be quite sharp questioning about the Khashoggi murder. Nobody on Fox challenges a Trump administration official this way, much less on Trump's favorite morning show, without orders from above. The hosts' open disbelief and criticism suggests the orders came from a Murdoch.
Pompeo called Khashoggi’s death “tragic” and “not something America approves of” but that was clearly the extent of his concern. “We have already held a number of individuals accountable,” he said, thereby giving Crown Prince MBS, as he is known, a giant pass. “America has an important ally in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia … and we intend to continue to protect the American people in the way that voters back two years ago demanded.”
His smug smile as he said that, seen above, is sickening.
Cohost Brian Kilmeade was not buying it: “They’re the ones who are putting it in peril, not us,” he said. He cited Senators Lindsey Graham and Bob Corker who, after a briefing by the CIA, thought MBS’ guilt had been proven beyond a doubt.
Pompeo waffled: “It is absolutely America’s intent to hold everyone accountable who was responsible for this.”
Kilmeade pressed: “So that’s yes. You—when you looked him in the eye and he denied it, did you believe him?”
Once again, Pompeo signaled his plan to give MBS a pass. He replied, “The kingdom of Saudi Arabia decides who’s running the country. … We are working closely with the kingdom to make sure that America is protected. That’s—that’s—that’s our interest there.”
Earhardt took up the reins. “What’s your response? The CIA says that they’re highly confident that, that the Saudi crown prince did order the murder of Khashoggi.”
Pompeo is the former head of the CIA but he threw his own former agency’s findings under the bus. “Some of the reporting that you’ve seen on that has been inaccurate,” he claimed.
“That’s false?” Earhardt sounded dubious.
“Is that inaccurate?” Kilmeade echoed.
“Look—look, we all know that they’re still working on this,” Pompeo claimed. “This is still a developing set of facts with respect to the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. The intelligence community is working diligently on that.”
Earhardt continued pressing: “Someone has to pay the price, though. It’s so brutal. Apparently, those audiotapes are awful.”
That’s when Pompeo all but declared that he has no problem letting a foreign power murder an American resident in service of his long-held desire for war against Iran, a plan he moved along at the U.N. later today.
POMPEO: Well, we—the Saudis have already paid the price. There are the folks who actually committed the murder, we’ve held accountable. We will continue to do that. No one underestimates how horrible this murder was.
But, remember, Iran is running rampant throughout the Middle East. The death of any one individual is awful. The death of hundreds of thousands of people in Europe or the Middle East or the United States matters an awful lot. President Trump is committed to protecting America.
Trump’s Fox Friends had no challenge about that.
Watch Pompeo disgrace America below, from the December 12, 2018 Fox & Friends.
We should absolutely remember the smugness of despicable people like Pompeo and Bolton. We should remember that this was their behavior when it mattered. And we should remember that they would never have been in their positions to do this damage had 2-3 million Americans actually showed up to vote in the swing states in 2016. Elections Have Consequences.
HOW ABOUT THIS YEAR’S ELECTION DESTROYING YOU, POMPEO!!