A “deep state” effort is to blame for senators being kept in the dark about the contents of a CIA report on the murder of Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi, according to Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky.
With CIA Director Gina Haspel briefing Senate leaders Tuesday after the agency reportedly concluded with high confidence that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the hit on Khashoggi, Paul complained about being left out.
“This is the very definition of the deep state,” the Kentucky senator told Fox News. “The deep state is that the intelligence agencies do things, conclude things, make conclusions, but then the elected officials are prevented from knowing about this. If we aren’t told about this and I’m not allowed to know about these conclusions, then I can’t have oversight … the deep state grows and has more and more power.”
The deep state is a conspiracy theory about a behind-the-scenes network controlling governments.
Haspel’s briefing with leaders of the Senate Armed Services, Foreign Relations, and Intelligence Committees comes after lawmakers expressed outrage over her absence last week when members were briefed by Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Khashoggi.
Mattis told reporters last week there was “no smoking gun” tying the crown prince to the killing of Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Turkey in early October.
“I’ve read in the media that the CIA has said with high confidence that the crown prince was involved with killing Khashoggi. I have not seen that intelligence nor have I even seen the conclusions. Today there is yet another briefing, and I’m being excluded from that. So really, this is the deep state at work that your representatives don’t know what’s going on in the intelligence agencies,” Paul said.
President Trump has dismissed the U.S. intelligence community’s findings while defending the crown prince. “I don’t know if anyone’s going to be able to conclude the crown prince did it,” Trump has said.
