CIA/INTELLIGENCE/MEDIA/SAUDI ARABIA/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “In a stunning statement, brutally honest even by Trumpian standards, the President made his views of Saudi Arabia — past, present and future — crystal clear Tuesday [11-20-18]. Undermining his own CIA’s intelligence assessment and hyperventilating about the virtues of the Saudis (a ‘truly spectacular ally,’ he called them last weekend), Donald Trump made plain he has no intention of losing confidence in Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, let alone imposing sanctions or him or any other Saudi royal over the killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Trump not only pardoned the Thanksgiving turkey, he also pardoned the crown prince, to the detriment of US interests and values. Having not bothered to listen to the audio of the horrific final minutes of Khashoggi’s life or to read the CIA’s report on why analysts reasoned that the prince directed the killing, Trump doubled down on his apparent conviction that the relationship with Saudi Arabia was too big to fail.”
–Aaron David Miller, “Saudi Arabia’s great bamboozle of Donald Trump,” CNN Politics, CNN.com, November 21, 2018 10:45 pm