During a September 2017 conversation with an aide, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said if he could not get journalist Jamal Khashoggi back to Saudi Arabia, either on his own accord or by force, he would go after him "with a bullet," current and former U.S. and foreign officials told The New York Times.
This intercepted conversation between the crown prince and Turki Aldakhil was included in a December intelligence report that has been circulated around spy agencies and the White House, the Times reports. The National Security Agency and other U.S. spy agencies have been going through years of the crown prince's text and voice communications, the Times reports, and analysts have determined that he may not have literally meant he would shoot him, but would have him killed another way.
Khashoggi was critical of the Saudi government, and after going into self-exile in the U.S, he began writing columns for The Washington Post in 2017. In another intercepted conversation, the crown prince reportedly complained to aide Saud al-Qahtani that Khashoggi held too much sway over people and was ruining his reputation as a reformer.
Khashoggi was killed in October 2018, with Saudi operatives strangling and dismembering him inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. The CIA has reportedly concluded that the crown prince ordered the killing, something Saudi Arabia has denied. In a statement, a Saudi official told the Times that the kingdom is "focused on uncovering the full truth" about Khashoggi's murder and "ensuring complete accountability." Catherine Garcia
Jeff Flake, the former senator from Arizona, doesn't know whether he would have voted to impeach President Trump, but is sure of one thing: Trump definitely did something wrong.
Flake announced in 2017 he would not seek re-election, saying he felt there wasn't any room in the Republican Party for critics of Trump. He was in the Senate chamber on Tuesday, watching his former colleagues participate in Trump's impeachment trial, and during a break told reporters he saw valid points on both sides of the argument over whether Trump's pressure on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was an impeachable offense.
Trump pushed Zelensky to launch an investigation into his political rival, former Vice President Joe Biden, and while Flake doesn't know if Trump should be removed from office over this, it wasn't a good idea. "As a Republican, it pains me when I see Republicans, House Republicans, try to maintain that the president did no wrong, that this is somehow normal," he said. "It's not." Catherine Garcia
That's one down.
The Senate stuck to party lines Tuesday as President Trump's impeachment trial got under way. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) introduced an amendment to the rules dictating the impeachment proceedings which called for the Senate to subpoena White House documents related to the events. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) then responded with a motion to table the proposal.
There wasn't much drama after that. The motion to table passed 53-47, as every member of the upper chamber stuck with their side, including a few GOP lawmakers like Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), and Mitt Romney (R-Utah), who are generally considered the biggest threats to cross the aisle. Collins, for her part, issued a statement shortly after the vote indicating her decision had more to do with the timing of Schumer's proposal than her opposition to bringing in new evidence.
After the defeat, Schumer introduced a second amendment, this time calling for documents from the State Department. Tim O'Donnell
Harvey Weinstein's defense will aim to discredit his accusers by citing alleged "loving emails," which a judge has just ruled can be referenced during his rape trial.
Attorney Damon Cheronis claimed in court Tuesday that Weinstein's defense team has "dozens and dozens and dozens of loving emails" from witnesses to Weinstein that it wants to use during the trial, The Associated Press reports. The defense claims that in these emails, women "describe being in loving relationships" with Weinstein or "describe him as someone they cared about both before and after these alleged sexual assaults," Bloomberg reports.
"We will counter with their own words," Cheronis said, also alleging that "witnesses who claim sexual assault with him also bragged about being involved in sexual relations with him," Deadline reports.
Judge James Burke said Tuesday the defense is permitted to reference what was allegedly said in these emails, although they aren't allowed to actually show them, NBC News reports. Assistant District Attorney Joan Illuzzi blasted the defense's characterization of the emails as "blatantly inaccurate," per Bloomberg.
Weinstein, who has been accused of sexual misconduct by more than 80 women, is facing charges of rape and sexual assault, to which he has pleaded not guilty.
Although Weinstein's defense on Tuesday won the right to reference these emails, it lost another bid to move his trial out of New York City; Assistant District Attorney Harriett Galvin called this a "transparent attempt to delay the proceedings," per AP. After a jury of seven men and five women was selected last week, opening arguments in the Weinstein trial are set to begin Wednesday. Brendan Morrow
Jay Sekulow apparently missed a few memos from the Trump administration.
Sekulow, who is serving as President Trump's outside lawyer in the Senate's impeachment trial, argued Tuesday that disputes between the White House and Congress are "why we have courts." But as the Department of Justice has repeatedly argued, including as recently as last month, that's not what this administration believes.
Arguments began Tuesday in the impeachment trial of Trump, during which House impeachment managers and Trump's defense team debated Republican-back rules for the trial. That's when Sekulow took shots at House Democrats who brought the charges against Trump, saying they should've let the courts rule on their subpoenas for documents and testimony from Trump administration officials before moving forward with impeachment. If they took issue with Trump claiming executive privilege to block those subpoenas, well, "it is why we have courts," Sekulow said.
Yet in December court filing regarding a House lawsuit against former White House Counsel Don McGahn, the Trump administration argued the opposite is true. Asking the court to "weigh in" on the subpoena "when political tensions are at their highest levels" reveals "why this sort of interbranch dispute is not one that has 'traditionally thought to be capable of resolution through the judicial process,'" the DOJ wrote.
Sekulow also alleged the Mueller report cleared Trump of collusion, which isn't a crime and not something former Special Counsel Robert Mueller even investigated. And as for Sekulow's claim that House Republicans weren't allowed into closed-door impeachment hearings, well, 48 of them were. Kathryn Krawczyk