Saudi Arabia indicts 11, seeks death penalty for 5, in Jamal Khashoggi's murder

Another title for this article could have been:

The Sacrificial Lambs

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Saudi Arabia indicted 11 suspects and prosecutors were requesting the death penalty for five of them for the murder of columnist Jamal Khashoggi last month, the kingdom's top prosecutor announced Thursday.

Khashoggi's killers had planned the murder on Sept. 29, three days before the Washington Post columnist disappeared during a visit to the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, Saudi Al-Mojeb said in a rare press conference. At least 21 people in total were in custody.

Former Saudi deputy intelligence chief Ahmad al-Assiri was the highest-level official behind the killing, the prosecutor said. He was fired for allegedly ordering Khashoggi to return to the consulate.

Khashoggi was killed by a 15-member Saudi “hit squad” sent from Riyahh, according to Turkish officials. Ankara has insisted the orders for Khashoggi’s killing came from the highest levels of the Saudi government, but not Salman himself.

The so-called “hit squad” strangled and dismembered Khashoggi at the consulate, Turkish officials have said. His body may have been chemically dissolved as it has not yet been discovered, according to multiple media reports.

An audio recording of Khashoggi’s killing had been shared with Saudi Arabia and other countries, including the U.S., Britain, France, Germany and Canada, according to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The audio recording of the killing was so “atrocious” a Saudi intelligence official who heard it speculated that “only someone who took heroin” could have done it, Erdogan said.

“The recording is truly atrocious. In fact, when the Saudi intelligence officer listened to the recording he was so shocked that he said 'this one probably took heroin. Only someone who took heroin would do it,” Erdogan was quoted as saying in the pro-government newspaper Yeni Safak.

U.S. national security adviser John Bolton said he didn’t think tape implicated Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman Al Saud.

“That is not the conclusion that the people who have heard it have come to,” Bolton said in Singapore on Tuesday.

President Donald Trump seeks to know that truth about what happened in the consulate where Khashoggi was killed, Bolton said.

“I have not listened to the tape myself, but in the assessment of those who have listened to it, it does not, in any way, link the crown prince to the killing,” Bolton said.

Saudi Arabia indicts 11, seeks death penalty for 5, in Jamal Khashoggi's murder

FL recount is going well

FL recount is going well

I thought it was spinach dip’: Monica Lewinsky opens up about THAT stain

It’s the most infamous stained dress in presidential history, but Monica Lewinsky says when she wore it after her widely chronicled hookup with President Bill Clinton, no one noticed.

“I went to dinner that night. None of these people said to me, ‘Hey, you’ve got to go to the bathroom, you’ve got stuff all over your dress,’” Lewinsky said in “The Clinton Affair,” a new A&E series.

She said she also didn’t spot the telltale semen stain that proved she and Clinton were more than just friends.

Lewinsky went into detail about the day the piece of evidence was created, as she continued to carry on a years-long relationship with Clinton in the early months of 1997, after he won re-election.

Clinton had invited Lewinsky to a White House radio address, she recalled.

“He said he had a present for me. I didn’t quite know — would I get to see him alone? Wouldn’t I?” Lewinsky said.

“As I went through to shake his hand after and take a picture with him, he said, ‘Oh, go see Betty, she has something for you.’”

The president was referring to Betty Currie, his personal secretary, whose desk was right outside the Oval Office.

“She brought me into the Oval Office and all three of us went into the back study, and she went into the dining room to hide there,” Lewinsky added.

“Because the illusion to everyone else was that I was not alone with him.”

The president gave Lewinsky a box with a hat pin, telling her he got it for her because “’you always look so cute in hats,’ or ‘you and your hats,’ or something like that,” Lewinsky said.

He also gave her a “really beautiful copy” of “Leaves of Grass” by Walt Whitman.

“It was a very meaningful present to me. It’s an intimate book that you don’t give lightly. Whatever had been nagging in me — is what I’m feeling real? Is that there? Whatever those insecurities were, they kind of vanished in some way with him giving me this gift,” Lewinsky said.

She explained that this was the first time she and the president had been together since she had been “banished” to the Pentagon, a decision she believed was made to keep her from affecting the 1996 presidential election.

“And so we moved to the bathroom and were more intimate. There was some attention paid on me and then I was reciprocating, where up until that point he had always stopped before completion on his part,” Lewinsky said, delicately trying to explain their encounter.

“I sort of stood up and said I wanted to move past that stage and so he finally said OK.”

That’s when the dress was soiled, but Lewinsky didn’t notice at the time.

“So that finished and then I hugged him after. And he hugged me,” she said. “And off I went.”

In 1998 grand jury testimony, she said she initially thought the marks on her dress “could be spinach dip or something.”

In a prior interview, Lewinsky said she didn’t notice the stain until she took the dress out for Thanksgiving. She tried it on for confidante Linda Tripp, who told her it made her look fat.

When the two women figured out that the president’s semen was deposited on the blue Gap dress, Tripp — who was taping Lewinsky — encouraged her to keep it.

“The Clinton Affair,” a six-part series produced by Alex Gibney and directed by Blair Foster, begins airing on A&E on Sunday, Nov. 18.

I thought it was spinach dip’: Monica Lewinsky opens up about THAT stain

Trump would lose heavily to Michelle Obama, Oprah or Joe Biden in 2020 presidential election, poll shows

This coming from the same people who told us Trump didn't have a snowball's chance in hell during the first go around.

The even have the final tally!  

© Reuters Donald Trump would lose to Michelle Obama, Oprah, and Joe Biden, according to the polls

 

Donald Trump would lose the 2020 presidential election if opposed by any one of a string of female candidates, including Michelle Obama, Elizabeth Warren, and even Oprah Winfrey, a new poll has claimed.

Hillary Clinton would beat the Republican by six points, the Axios poll suggested, though Mrs. Obama would triumph by an enormous 16-point margin. Kirsten Gillibrand, the New York senator, was tipped to beat Mr. Trump by eight points, 50 to 42.

However, nearly half of respondents to the survey – 47 percent – conducted before the midterm elections in which Mr. Trump lost control of the House of Representatives to the Democrats, said they already held a “strongly unfavorable” opinion of the president two years into his tenure.

Axios and SurveyMonkey asked 9,908 people across two polls who they would vote for if the 2020 election were held today. The larger sample, of 6,497 people, had an error margin of 2.5 percent and the smaller one had a 1.5-per-cent error estimate.

2020 Election

Who would win?

• Hillary Clinton 50 // 44 Donald Trump

• Michelle Obama 56 // 40 Donald Trump

• Kirsten Gillibrand 50 // 42 Donald Trump

• Oprah Winfrey 54 // 40 Donald Trump

• Kamala Harris 52 // 41 Donald Trump

• Joe Biden 54 // 42 Donald Trump

• Elizabeth Warren 50 // 45 Donald Trump

Trump would lose heavily to Michelle Obama, Oprah or Joe Biden in 2020 presidential election, poll shows

Kavanaugh accuser still collects pledge cash - Washington Times

Christine Blasey Ford is no longer in the headlines, but she’s still collecting cash through GoFundMe accounts set up by friends and fans who wanted to show their support for her attempt to derail Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh’s path to the Supreme Court.

As of Monday, more than $850,000 had been pledged to the two biggest online solicitations, with one of them, personally blessed by Ms. Blasey Ford, still raking in more than $4,000 over the weekend.

The organizers of the funds have been strikingly secretive about their operations, declining to respond to messages about the cash they’ve raised. Ms. Blasey Ford’s lawyers have also said little, other than to say they worked pro bono and so the cash won’t have to be used to pay them.

It’s not even clear whether Ms. Blasey Ford has accessed the money.

The California college instructor made waves when she came forward, first anonymously in July and then quite publicly in September, to accuse Justice Kavanaugh of attempted rape at a high school party three decades ago.

While the accusations have not been corroborated by contemporaneous evidence, and the witnesses she said were at the party have refuted her accounts, her story became a major dividing line in American politics — and plenty of Democrats, women who’d suffered assaults, and people who disliked President Trump responded with cash.

A statement from Ms. Blasey Ford, which was posted more than a month ago, said she would be using the money toward security after facing threats and harassment.

“The costs for security, housing, transportation and other related expenses are much higher than we anticipated and they do not show signs of letting up. Funds received via this account will be used to help us pay for these mounting expenses,” Ms. Blasey Ford in the Oct. 3 statement — the last update to the pledge page, created Sept 18.

The page, set up by people who said they were friends and neighbors, set a goal of $150,000. As of Monday it had reached nearly $650,000 in pledges.

A second campaign, also created Sept. 18 by Georgetown University law professor Heidi Feldman, started with a $100,000 goal, and hit that in just a day. She raised the target to $200,000, and topped that, raising nearly $210,000 before it stopped taking pledges.

Ms. Feldman didn’t answer requests for comment, but last month told the Palo Alto Daily Post, in Ms. Blasey Ford’s hometown, that she was making arrangements to transfer the donations to the Ford family.

“I believe that when somebody is trying to legitimately participate in an open democratic process, they should be safe enough to participate without undue intimidation,” Ms. Feldman told the newspaper.

Ms. Blasey Ford’s lawyers last week told National Public Radio she’s still receiving threats and has not been able to return to her job at Palo Alto University.

Her lawyers declined to confirm that to The Washington Times.

Ms. Feldman, for her part, figured Ms. Blasey Ford deserved another tribute. She launched a second GoFundMe campaign to raise money to endow an academic professorship or scholarship in Ms. Blasey Ford’s name. It has more than $30,000 in pledges.

“I am in contact with a few institutions that could suitably house whatever we raise in this campaign. Once details of a formal endowment are arranged, I plan and hope to publicize how future donors can contribute to it directly. In the meantime, gifts to this preliminary round are vital and much appreciated,” Ms. Feldman posted to that campaign page.

GoFundMe is an online fundraising platform that’s proved popular for small charitable offerings, as well as political statements. A page was set up to help fired FBI Agent Peter Strzok, with a goal of $500,000. As of Monday it was at $448,162 — though new pledges have largely dried up.

Justice Kavanaugh’s supporters also turned to GoFundMe, setting up a page to raise money to support him and his family for security or other needs — or to give to a charity of the justice’s choice. The page got more than $600,000 in pledges.

But John Hawkins, the page creator and founder of RightWingNews.com, said late last month he received a letter telling him that under judicial ethics Justice Kavanaugh couldn’t accept the money, nor could he name a charity. The letter ordered that the justice’s name not be used in any fundraising.

Mr. Hawkins posted an update, saying he will instead donate the money to the Catholic Archdiocese of Washington. He gave people one week to recover donations if they didn’t approve.

As of Monday, the account had dropped to $490,296

Kavanaugh accuser still collects pledge cash - Washington Times