I can confirm that the National Security Agency, America’s big ear, indeed intercepted Saudi communications that indicated Riyadh had something unpleasant in store for Khashoggi. Listening in on foreign governments, after all, is NSA’s main job, and that includes frenemies like Saudi Arabia as well as hostile regimes. At least a day before Khashoggi appeared at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, an NSA official told me, the agency had Top Secret information that Riyadh was planning something nefarious—though exactly what was not clear from the intercepts. This was deemed important because Khashoggi is a legal resident of the United States, and is therefore entitled to protection. According to the NSA official, this threat warning was communicated to the White House through official intelligence channels.
It needs to be asked what, if anything, the White House did with this Top Secret warning. Intelligence without action is merely expensive noise, and if no action was taken in this case, Congress should ask why not. If action was taken—meaning a warning was issued to Saudi officials to keep their hands of Khashoggi—and Riyadh ignored it, that too is something worth investigating. Saudi Arabia is a difficult ally of the United States, but our influence in Riyadh remains significant. This is particularly the case due to the close relationship between President Donald Trump’s administration and MBS, which is reported to be cordial and then some. At press time, the White House had not responded to a request for comment.
NSA did its highly classified job and provided the White House with threat information, direct from Saudi sources, which might have saved Jamal Khashoggi from whatever grim fate he met on October 2 at the hands of Saudi officials. If the Trump administration failed to take necessary action to protect a journalist and dissident who was resident in our country, the guilt in this case will not lie solely with Riyadh.