The campaign of Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey has chosen to repeat an attack on his rival made by the widow of the late US-based journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was tortured and mutilated inside the Saudi Arabian consulate in 2018, who “begged” the campaign to retract it.
of Hard-hitting ad President Trump has accused Republican Senate candidate David McCormick of trying to maintain his hedge fund's ties to Saudi Arabia despite the U.S. ally's involvement in a brutal murder.
“There is no dispute that David McCormick required his hedge fund to demonstrate support and loyalty to Khashoggi's killers in order to protect his business interests,” spokeswoman Maddie McDaniel told The Washington Post.
“We have the utmost sympathy for what Mr. Khashoggi has been through. The advert will run as originally planned from next week.”
McDaniel said, Wall Street Journal report McCormick, who was then co-CEO of Bridgewater Associates, the world's largest hedge fund, described how he faced an internal dispute over the firm's Saudi Arabian investors.
In their ad, Casey's team accused McCormick of “demanding allegiance from his hedge fund to murderers to protect its investments in Saudi Arabia.”
Jamal's widow, Hanan Elatol Khashoggi, was outraged by the ad, pointing out that it mistakenly listed him as an American when he is a Saudi Arabian national.
“This commercial is a painful reminder of the death of my husband and, as you can imagine, has caused me daily trauma for the past six years,” she said in an email to Senator Casey's office. According to Politico.
“While I am not taking a political stance in your senatorial campaign, I am committed to correcting misconceptions about my late husband.”
She revealed that she had spoken to Casey's team and “begged them to remove the ad immediately.”
“Instead of doing the right thing and following my wishes, they are allowing the ads to continue. There is a difference between continuing the cycle without updating an ad and immediately taking it down,” she added.
Her lawyer, Randa Fahmy, has written to local broadcasting stations asking them not to broadcast the story. She talked about herself As a “good friend” of McCormick's.
“Bob Casey has lied again, this time taking advantage of his widow, and it's one more reason for voters to remove him from office in November,” McCormick said in a statement.
Multiple investigations have determined that aides to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman were responsible for the alleged torture and dismemberment of Khashoggi's body inside the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul.
The CIA concluded: King Salman has alleged that Crown Prince Mohammed ordered the attack on Khashoggi, a vocal critic of the Islamic State, a charge King Salman denies.
Khashoggi's death sparked an international outcry and strained relations between the United States and Riyadh.
The Pennsylvania Senate race is in the spotlight, with Casey holding an average lead of 3 points over McCormick. Latest RealClearPolitics Poll tally.
of Cook Political Report's Election Interference Currently, the race is rated as favoring the Democrats.
