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Saudi prince calls murder of WaPo journo a ‘painful’ mistake; defends $2B investment in Jared Kushner

September 21, 2023 | | Print Article

Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman admitted there were “mistakes” made in the brutal 2018 death of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi — an ambush that the CIA concluded could have only happened with bin Salman’s direct approval.

In his first interview with a major American news network in roughly four years, bin Salman told Fox News’s “Special Report” executive editor and host Bret Baier that “everyone involved” in the journalist’s death is behind bars and must “face the law.”

“We take all the legal measurements that any country took … We did that in Saudi Arabia and the case being closed,” the Saudi leader said. “Also, we try to reform the security system to be sure that these kind of mistakes doesn’t happen again, and we can see in the past five years nothing of those things happened. It’s not part of what Saudi Arabia do.”

“It was a mistake,” he said. “It was painful. And we are trying our best to be sure that we reform our system to work by the book and to be sure that everyone that is safe, not in Saudi, but the whole globe.”

With respect to the $2 billion investment into Jared Kushner from bin Salman’s Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF), the leader said it would remain in place, even if Kushner’s father-in-law, former President Donald Trump, is re-elected in 2024, despite concerns that it would be seen as a conflict of interest.

“If it’s legal, what’s the problem?” bin Salman asked.

“We look for opportunities in investment,” he explained. “We have a lot of investment around the globe with a lot of people with economic opportunity.”

“It’s a commitment that PIF have and when PIF have a commitment with any investor around the globe, we keep it,” he said.

Pressed on the potential conflict of interest, bin Salman said, “Saudi Arabia is so big, so I’m quite sure mostly any person around the world directly or indirectly you have something to do with Saudi Arabia.”

“So if that can affect President Trump’s decision if he becomes a President, that means it can affect every president in the world and every person in the world’s decision,” he stated. “Because directly and indirectly they have some sort of interest in something to do with Saudi Arabia.”

The crown prince also denied that the Saudi government had anything to do with the attacks on America on September 11, 2001, despite that 15 of the 19 hijackers who executed the plan were Saudi citizens.

The mastermind, he insisted, was Usama bin Laden, who also planned and executed multiple attacks on Saudi Arabia.

“It doesn’t make any sense that we work with a guy who is doing terrorist attacks in Saudi Arabia in the ’90s and, after that, killing Saudis and foreign people at that time in Saudi Arabia,” bin Salman said. “He’s our enemy and he’s the American enemy.”


Perhaps most concerning was bin Salman’s reaction to the $6 billion of frozen assets to which the Biden administration recently gave Iran access for “humanitarian purposes” as part of a prisoner swap for five detained American citizens.

Many fear Iran will use that money to further its acquisition of nuclear weapons. Should that happen, bin Salman said that Saudi Arabia would follow suit.

“If they get one, we have to get one,” he said, to balance the power in the Middle East.

“The world cannot see another Hiroshima,” he stated.

As for his nation’s relations with Israel, bin Salman is optimistic about the negotiations for peace.

“Every day we get closer,” he stated.

You can watch Baier’s entire interview with Mohammed bin Salman below:

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Melissa Fine
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