Trump downplays 'very premature' report on CIA assessment of Khashoggi killing

President Trump
(Image credit: Pool/Getty Images)

President Trump on Saturday downplayed Friday's report that the CIA has concluded Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the murder of U.S.-based Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.

"They haven't assessed anything yet. It's too early. That was a very premature report," Trump told reporters. "We'll be having a very full report over the next two days, probably Monday or Tuesday," he said, adding that it will include "who did it."

The president also praised Saudi Arabia as "a truly spectacular ally in terms of jobs and economic development." He has repeatedly resisted calls to end U.S. arms sales to Riyadh over Khashoggi's death and the Saudi military intervention in Yemen's civil war, claiming the economic toll on the United States would be too high.

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Bonnie Kristian

Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.