Bolton's book alleges Trump's controversial defense of Saudi crown prince was a press diversion tactic

Donald Trump and Mohammad bin Salman.
(Image credit: Kevin Dietsch-Pool/Getty Images)

Back in November 2018, about six weeks after the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, President Trump issued a statement defending Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, even though the CIA concluded he ordered Khashoggi's assassination a few days earlier.

Now, former National Security Adviser John Bolton alleges in his forthcoming book, The Room Where It Happened, that Trump's enthusiastic rhetoric wasn't really about the possibility that the crown prince had nothing to do with the incident. Instead, Bolton said the statement was mainly part of an effort to draw media attention away from Trump's daughter, Ivanka Trump, who was under fire following a story about her using her personal email for government business. "This will divert from Ivanka," Trump said, per Bolton's account. "If I read the statement in person, that will take over the Ivanka thing."

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Tim O'Donnell

Tim is a staff writer at The Week and has contributed to Bedford and Bowery and The New York Transatlantic. He is a graduate of Occidental College and NYU's journalism school. Tim enjoys writing about baseball, Europe, and extinct megafauna. He lives in New York City.