Image by Gage Skidmore via Flickr Creative Commons https://www.flickr.com/photos/gageskidmore/

The alleged murder of Muslim Brotherhood booster, Islamist, and writer of op-eds for the Washington Post, Jamal Khashoggi, has roiled the diplomatic waters in Washington as everyone waits to see what an actual investigation will uncover and what action President Trump will take. (Look, I think very few people deserve killing but we can object to the killing of Khashoggi without losing sight of who and what he was, and the last thing he was was a proponent of a liberalized Arab world.) All of the news on the story has exactly two sources: Turkey and Qatar. What both of those nations have in common is a hatred of Muhammad bin Salman’s opening to Israel and a love of the Muslim Brotherhood. The utter reliance of the media on information being spoon-fed and dictated to them by Turkish and Qatari government sources has produced a lot of bad reporting. And some of it has just been plain old #FakeNews.

This story on Reuters about firing the Saudi consul in Istanbul is wrong. The agency fell for a fake website https://t.co/iDpC0CXiNr

— Ahmed Al Omran (@ahmed) October 17, 2018

Yesterday, ABC News ran this story. In it, ABC claims that during Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s visit to Turkey, the Turks played audio/video of Khashoggi’s death to him.

ABC is reporting that Sec. Mike Pompeo has heard the alleged audio recording of Khashoggi's murder inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, citing ‘a senior Turkish official.’ https://t.co/D4TeXMYl8e

— j.d. durkin (@jiveDurkey) October 18, 2018

The sourcing on it is a “Turkish official.”

The Turks have denied that happened.

Still waiting for @abc to make this the lede: Reuters: “Turkey has not shared audio recordings with anyone, foreign minister says.” Again, @SecPompeo and I have gone on record 3 times saying that Sec State has not seen/heard alleged #JamalKhashoggi audio/transcript. https://t.co/7tamozUKQJ

— Morgan Ortagus (@statedeptspox) October 19, 2018

At a news conference earlier today, Pompeo took the unprecedented step of calling out ABC News over this story.

More blind leaks via Turk, Qatari & pro-Muslim bros state media cited by US outlets w/ zero confirmation & no context. Turkey is the world’s #1 jailer & attacker of Journalists & sponsor of Al Qeda Al Nusra.
This story isn’t the media’s finest moment
⁦@SecPompeo⁩ goes off: pic.twitter.com/PQ8Agrdjv3

— Josh Block (@JoshBlockDC) October 19, 2018

What we are seeing with the Khashoggi disappearance is an information operation aimed at stopping closer ties between the US and Saudi Arabia and preventing the Saudis from being a force to confront the Iranians in the Middle East. Because Khashoggi was a Muslim Brotherhood propagandist journalist employed by the Washington Post and because damaging the new relationship with Saudi Arabia would be a way of validating Obama’s foreign policy, the media have signed onto this jihad. One would be wise to treat virtually every fact the media presents in this case as being speculative and unproven because that is exactly what it is.

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