We have seen many repulsive sights in the Oval Office since Trump was sworn in last January. The covering of the room in fake gold ornaments is an abomination. Trump’s rude treatment of Zelensky was an outrage.

But the top abomination, at this moment, was his loving embrace of Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who should be reviled for his brutal murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

What next? A Presidential Medal of Honor for Putin?

Trump has many personal commercial ties to Saudi Arabia. Cynically speaking, Trump is building alliances by making personal deals with potentates who increase his family wealth. Surely, we cannot forget that MBS arranged to give Son-in-law Jared Kushner $2 billion after Trump left office in 2021. Kushner had no experience in financial investing. His background was real estate. Now, Trump’s real estate buddies Steve Witkoff and Howard Lutnick, are Trump’s envoys to Russia, the Middle East, and other hotspots. They too (and their children) are taking in millions and billions, because they are in “the room where it happens.”

The New York Times wrote recently about how Lutnick’s sons are making lucrative deals , which are helped by the fact that their father is Secretary of Commerce. “But never in modern U.S. history has the office intersected so broadly and deeply with the financial interests of the commerce secretary’s own family, according to interviews with ethics lawyers and historians…”

The New York Times also chronicled the ways that billionaire Steve Witkoff’s sons are cashing in with investments in the Middle East and in cryptocurrency, building on their father’s connection to Trump.

This is not what the Founders intended.

But maybe those of us who worry about abstract ideas like ethics and laws are in the wrong. Maybe the best way to make a deal with the devil is to get in bed with him, speak his language, and buy his friendship. That’s Trump’s way. And nobody does it better.

Sabrina Haake writes:

Trump just threw a lavish state party to welcome a Saudi murderer. He defended the murderer’s crime, blamed the victim, and viciously attacked a reporter for asking the question on everyone’s mind: What about Jamal Khashoggi?

Of all the shameful metaphors for the corruption, ignorance, and rot presently infecting the White House, this one wears the Trump crown.

A brutal regime dismembers its critic

Jamal Khashoggi was a US resident and journalist for the Washington Post during its halcyon years, before it fell to corporate interests that now serve Trump.

Khashoggi was also a frequent critic of the Saudi government. He frequently criticized the royal ruling family, not for their lavish lifestyles, but for their suppression of dissent, their refusal to allow free speech among the Saudi people, and their widespread human rights abuses.

On Oct. 2, 2018, Khashoggi was murdered in Istanbul. He had gone to see about a visa for his Turkish fiancée at the Saudi consulate’s office, where he was attacked, stangled, and dismembered.

A recording made by Turkish intelligence agents in the building captured the whole gruesome ordeal: Khashoggi could be heard struggling against Saudi guards of the royal Crown Prince as his killing was recorded, complete with screams, the sounds of strangulation, then quiet, before a bone saw was heard dismembering his body.

US Intelligence knows bin Salman did it

In 2021, US intelligence reports concluded that Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, aka “the Bone Saw Prince,” had personally ordered the operation.

The US Director of National Intelligence supplied reasons supporting that conclusion, including:

· bin Salman’s total control of decision-making in the Saudi Kingdom;

· The direct involvement of bin Salman’s key adviser in the brutal attack, along with members of his personal security team; and

· bin Salman’s stated support for using violence to silence critics of the Saudi government abroad, including Khashoggi.

US intelligence added that, “Since 2017, the Crown Prince has had absolute control of the Kingdom’s security and intelligence organizations, making it highly unlikely that Saudi officials would have carried out an operation of this nature without the Crown Prince’s authorization.”

Despite these publicly available facts, Trump treated bin Salman to an unusually lavish state reception, complete with military officers in full dress carrying both Saudi and American colors. As the US taxpayer-funded Marine band played, Trump and Mr. Bone Saw were treated to a fly-over of advanced fighter jets, samples of the 48 F-35 jets Trump already sold to Saudi Arabia, despite national security concerns that China would be able to steal the aircraft’s advanced technology.

Trump courts a murderer to line his own pockets

Trump’s personal wealth has increased by over $3 billion since his return to office, largely from ethics-adjacent crypto schemes, foreign real estate deals, meme coins that have no value, and overt pay to play transactions. His lavish courtship of bin Salman fits neatly into the same corrupt pattern, promoting Trump’s illegal,private, for-profit interests.

The Trump Organization now has multiple, large-scale projects pending in Saudi Arabia, including a new Trump Tower and a Trump Plaza development in the works in Jeddah, along with two other projects planned in Riyadh. These deals are publicly known; it’s likely billions more are exchanging hands under the table.

Trump is also in private partnership with the Saudi-owned, “International Luxury Real Estate Developer,” Dar Global. There’s also a separate $2 billion deal where an Abu Dhabi-based, UAE-backed investment firm used a cryptocurrency from the Trump family’s venture, World Liberty Financial, to invest in another crypto exchange, profiting Trump royally.

And no one has forgotten Trump’s son in law, Jared Kushner’s, $2 billion private “investment” fee from the Saudis, packaged when Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) announced a $55 billion acquisition. Kushner’s fee is widely regarded as payment for providing political cover and guaranteeing Trump’s regulatory protection. After the PIF’s own advisors initially rejected the deal, bin Salman personally overruled them and pushed it through.

Trump didn’t mention these deals this week when he rolled out the red carpet on taxpayers’ dime, but claimed instead with trademark ambiguity that the Saudis were going to “invest as much as $1 trillion in the US.”

Trump endorses the unthinkable

Journalists around the world, not to mention Khashoggi’s family, had to endure the nightmare of watching Trump fawn all over bin Salman. In every photo from the mainstream media, Trump couldn’t keep his hands off him, as if Trump were absorbing Saudi wealth through his fingers.

Tuesday, when journalist Mary Bruce asked bin Salman about intelligence reports concluding that he ordered the Khashoggi murder, Trump jumped in, answering for him. “He knew nothing about it! You don’t have to embarrass our guest by asking something like that.”

Trump then suggested Khashoggi got what he had coming for criticizing the government, saying, “A lot of people didn’t like that gentleman (Khashoggi) that you’re talking about, whether you like him or didn’t like him, things happen.”

After sending this chilling message to his critics, Trump then attacked Bruce for asking a “horrible,” insubordinate,” and “just a terrible question,” dressing her down in garbled syntax before cameras of the world with, “You’re all psyched up. Somebody psyched you over at ABC and they’re going to psych it. You’re a terrible person and a terrible reporter,” and later demanded that ABC lose its broadcast license.

Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is condemned throughout the civilized world as a brutal 5th Century pariah. Trump just spent a taxpayer fortune to rebrand him “one of the most respected people in the world” to elevate and promote Trump’s own private business ventures.

It is fitting that Trump committed this atrocity in a formerly dignified room recently desecrated with tacky gold medallions. The Oval Office is now a bordello whose pimp is selling America to the highest bidder, and we, his trafficked victims, are letting him do it.

Sabrina Haake is a columnist and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. Her Substack, The Haake Take, is free.