Trump has not agreed with his intelligence community's assessment that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman - the de facto leader of Saudi Arabia who has forged an alliance with the administration - ordered the October assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was murdered inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. Khashoggi, a Washington Post contributing columnist, was reportedly cut up with a bone saw, and messages later showed that the crown prince had plotted in the past to kill him. The Saudi government has blamed the operation on a rogue band of operatives who were sent to Istanbul to bring Khashoggi back to Saudi Arabia.