This story broke a few days ago and a few new media channels have picked it up. If any of this is true, it is a significantly worse scandal than Trump-Ukraine and could become pretty big news in the weeks to come, if there is any validity at all to the story.

The report says a whistleblower is alleging that Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law, approved Saudi plans to arrest Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was later murdered and dismembered.

According to Spectator, Turkey intercepted and recorded the call between Kushner and Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and then used it to gain leverage over Trump.

As we all know, Trump had agreed to remove American troops from northern Syria after a phone call with Turkish President Erdogan.

So the allegation is that Jared Kushner green-lit the kidnapping, which led to the eventual death, of a Wapo journalist, Jamal Khashoggi, and that Trump was strong-armed/blackmailed by Turkey President Erdogan, with the recorded evidence of Kushner's intercepted phone call, to remove US troops from Syria.

White House official calls report "false nonsense", not surprising.

This is pretty crazy stuff, if at all true. I guess we'll see.





https://spectator.us/seven-whistlebl...er-bin-salman/
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ite-House.html

Big if true.

Yeah I heard this yesterday from a coworker who got it of reddit. Seems that the Daily Mail is the only mainstream outlet that picked it up. That Spectator article is the only source afaik.

Seems a bit too crazy to be true, but I didn't see any debunking so far, and it also "fits" in some ways. I kinda don't want it to be true, as I want the TV series about the Trump presidency to be a comedy, and this is adding some very dark tones.

To bad Luckbox selfbanned; maybe it's a Psy OP?

Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that this "conspiracy theory" is true. The problem, simply put, is how to prove it? What would be required is a "leak" of the [alleged] telephone conversation between Jared Kushner and MBS. (No, not a transcript of the alleged conversation or a redacted summary, but the actual voice recording.)

Does Jared speak Arabic - or MBS speak English? If Turkish intelligence managed to pick up (and record) this alleged telephone conversation, how did our own NSA and other sig int (signals intelligence) services manage to miss it? Is Jared really that stupid - or so stupid that he would discuss a kidnapping/murder plot with the King of Saudi Arabia over the phone? If Erdogan, Turkey's President, has this [alleged] telephone recording and has used it for blackmail purposes, it's doubtful he would ever let it out of his control.

Despite all these "ifs" and maybes, there is one fact that makes this theory plausible. Trump suddenly reverses a longstanding bedrock principle of American foreign policy, namely the support of our Kurdish allies in Syria. Former Defense Secretary James Mattis was so distressed by this sudden withdrawal and abandonment of the Kurds, that he resigned in protest. Trump's argument that he is determined to get us out of "forever wars" seems a bit too convenient.

This [latest] conspiracy theory may be true, but unless it can be conclusively proved, it's just another [unproven] allegation.

“Big if true” is obviously a meme joke because conservatives including the president, his sons, and other members of both the senate and the house routinely retweet racist nonsense conspiracy theories on twitter and then get away with it by saying they were just asking questions(JAQ’ing off)...

That being said kushner telling mbs that it would be fine for him to arrest kashoggi which led to turkey using that as leverage, as a theory, is infinitely more plausible, than any uranium one/Benghazi/crowdsource/burism or whatever the **** Barr is currently pushing.

I'd withhold judgment until media with a good track-record of vetting sources report it, and preferably several independent reports that isn't just referring another outlet's article.

It's easy to go into "theory-frenzy", an eagerness to accept new revelations.

There was an op ed written by Turkish President Erdogan in the Washington post about the Khashoggi murder.
For some reason I'm having some technical difficulties and can't paste it but if anyone who hasn't read it and is interested, you can just Google
Washington post Erdogan op ed. This was on Nov 22nd

I found it rather interesting, but didn't know what to make of it, that a guy who's known for imprisoning journalists who criticize him or the state, would write something like this.

Prior to Erdogan's destruction of Turkey's constitution and democratic mechanisms, it had an excellent constitution based on liberal principles (aka classical liberalism, not progressive politics). He has to pretend this still exists, to make his followers sleep well at night.

That said, the content of the op-ed was in itself reasonable enough. Erdogan might be cut from authoritarian cloth, but unlike many like him, he is not stupid. As evidenced by the ease with which he is currently outmaneuvering both US and Russia to advance aggressive Turkish foreign policy.

His piece: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...oggis-killing/

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/lin...-house-meeting

Graham is such a dbag. Of course his issues with Erdogan and the Turks are legitimate. But all the world has known all along that the Turks have it in for the Kurds. So this makes Trumps actions even more egregious. Trump withdrew American forces from the Kurdish held areas knowing full well what the consequences would be. After first showing some backbone and rightfully criticizing Trump, Graham has now backtracked and gives Trump a pass, once again, and puts on this farce with Erdogan.
It's pretty sickening if you ask me.

I'm not sure this is true.

There is good reason to doubt Trump knew much about the situation in Syria. His statements seem to indicate ignorance about both geography, demography and history of the region. He has seemed largely oblivious about the coalition with the Kurdish Peshmerga. His statements seem to reflect no actual knowledge about what American forces were actually doing in the region and his calls for withdrawal of the forces also seem indicate no knowledge about how they were organized.

From statements by the Pentagon, we can also infer that Trump was not advised or informed anyone about his decisions. This is also corroborated by news reports where sources tell us the decision was made off-the cuff.

To be clear, I don't think this is an excuse, I think it is just as bad. My point is that the US president seems to have very little idea of what he is doing, why he is doing it or how he should do it. Again and again this has proved ruinous to American foreign policy and diplomacy. I think the only thing keeping him up is a team around him willing to make excuses and a political reality which is so tribal that reality has become politically unimportant.

Huge if true.

Huge if.

Not trying to be a contrarian. I can see how your reasoning makes sense.
I would argue though that Trump does not make decisions in isolation. I can't imagine any President has ever. Albeit, Trump is an anomaly and listens less to his advisors than arguably any President in history, but the point I'm trying to make is that he does have advisors. He has, like any modern President, a whole slew of people around him like the Secretary of state Pompeo and his national security staff.
No, I would argue he knew exactly what he's doing. He first withdraws troops claiming it was part of his campaign promise to bring the troops back home and end the conflicts and then deployed them to another part of Syria.