Yeni Şafak headlined "Dahlan 'cover-up team' from Lebanon helps hide traces of Khashoggi murder" and reported that on October 2nd, "A second team that arrived in Istanbul to help cover-up the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was dispatched by Muhammed Dahlan, UAE Crown Prince Muhammed bin Zayed's chief hitman in the region, ... according to an informed source who spoke to Yeni Şafak daily on the condition of anonymity."
On November 16th, the Washington Post had headlined "CIA concludes Saudi crown prince ordered Jamal Khashoggi's assassination".
Bin Salman and bin Zayed are U.S. President Donald Trump's closest foreign allies other than, possibly, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. All four men are determined that there be regime-change in Shiite Iran. This anti-Shia position bonds them also against the Houthis, who are Shiites, in Yemen, where bin Salman and bin Zayed lead the war, and the United States provides the training, logistics, and weapons. Both bin Salman and bin Zayed are fundamentalist Sunnis who are against Shia Muslims. Israel and the United States are allied with these two princes. Saudi Arabia's royal family have been committed against Shia Muslims ever since 1744 when the Saud family made a pact with the fundamentalist Sunni preacher Mohammed ibn Wahhab, who hated Shia Muslims. Thus, Saudi Arabia is actually Saudi-Wahhabi Arabia, with Sauds running the aristocracy, and Wahhabists running the clergy.
In 2017, in Saudi Arabia's capital of Riyadh, Trump sold, to the Saudi Crown Prince, initially, $350 billion of U.S.-made weapons over a ten-year period (the largest weapons-sale in world history), and $110 billion in just the first year. That deal was soon increased to $404 billion. For Trump publicly to acknowledge that Salman had "ordered Jamal Khashoggi's assassination" would jeopardize this entire deal, and, perhaps, jeopardize the consequent boom in America's economy. It also would jeopardize the U.S. alliance's war against Shiites in Yemen.
Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They're Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST'S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.
Comment: The UAE naturally denies their involvement, blaming the Turkish press of fabricating news. Perhaps. But what has been especially entertaining about this whole sordid affair has been the fact that the Turks have known the truth from the beginning, essentially forcing Saudi Arabia to make absolute fools of themselves by repeatedly lying, having those lies exposed, and then lying again. It must be frustrating to a regime so used to getting away with murder to have all their attempts at a cover-up rebuked. Couldn't have happened to a more deserving target.