See below for video of Rep. Eugene Vindman (D-VA07), in which he discussed the “2019 phone call between Trump and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, made in the aftermath of the murder of journalist and Virginia resident Jamal Khashoggi.” Rep. Vindman also talks about the (as he describes it) “sham investigation into me for telling the truth about Trump’s 2019 call with the Saudi Crown Prince.” Here are a few highlights:
- “Well, look, the president’s feeling the heat. And there’s no coincidence here – the day after I called for the release of the transcript of the Khashoggi call, they send this request to Capitol Hill and it is retaliation, plain and simple. It’s meant to silence me and it’s not going to work…whether the standard is accurate or not, all of this is based on the fact that they don’t even know whether I took any compensation from the Ukrainian government. And I can tell you right now, I can save everybody time and effort – I didn’t take – my company, my former company – didn’t take a dime from the Ukrainian government, a Ukrainian citizen or any Ukrainian entity.”
- “So look, there are transcripts of the president’s calls with foreign leaders. I reviewed a number of different transcripts of these calls during the first Trump administration. There were two that stood out to me. One was the Ukraine call and obviously we know that the actions in that call resulted in the president’s first impeachment. The second was this call with the Saudi crown prince. It happened after the…brutal murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a Washington Post reporter, a resident of Virginia – and by reports from US intelligence services on the orders of MBS, Mohammad bin Salman, to kill or capture him. And it was a brutal murder. There was audio of the murder. You can hear Mr. Khashoggi being killed and the president is basically covering for him. And so I will just say that subsequent to the time period of the call, the president is on the record saying he covered MBS’s ass. And in the ensuing six years, he and his family have profited enormously. And so those six years, you can say that’s the pro quo. And where exactly did the quid stem from? I think maybe looking at the call could be a good start.”
- “…US intelligence services have already assessed that MBS had ordered the kill or capture. And frankly, the president is actually covering for MBS. And the bottom line is you don’t have a brutal murder of a Washington Post reporter, a Virginia resident, that just happens. I had a press conference with Hanan Khashoggi, the widow of Mr. Khashoggi, and I will tell you she talked about the future that she looked forward to with her husband, the fact that they wanted to build a family here in Virginia. All of that was cut short by this brutal murder. It didn’t just happen and we can’t overlook that, no matter what the president wants to do or how he wants to rewrite history.”
- “I will tell you behind closed doors, a lot of my colleagues are very interested in what the president is doing in Venezuela. I have serious concerns that the president’s operations so far, the operations he’s ordered on these drug boats, are illegal. They’re violation of international law, of the law of war. And any further operations, now that we have obviously a campaign in accordance with the war powers resolution, need to go to Congress. We will not sit idly by and allow this to happen. And I will tell you that the president has already seen numerous defections from his own party. And these operations in Venezuela, his position in Ukraine, all of these are going to cause additional defections over the coming weeks if he does not back off.”
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