The Senate campaign of Bob Casey in Pennsylvania has announced that it will not renew an ad that has sparked a complaint from the widow of a U.S.-based journalist who was murdered inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018.
In a statement released on Friday, the campaign expressed sympathy for the widow of Jamal Khashoggi but stated that they did not intend to immediately remove the ad, which features the journalist and criticizes opponent Dave McCormick for his connections to the Saudi government.
Campaign spokesperson Maddy McDaniel mentioned that the ad, which was deemed insensitive by the widow, would be phased out next week as originally planned.
McDaniel stated, “There is no doubt that David McCormick insisted that his hedge fund show support and allegiance to the individuals responsible for Mr. Khashoggi’s death, all in the interest of safeguarding his own business interests. We extend our deepest sympathies to Mrs. Khashoggi for what she has endured.”
The campaign had a conversation with the widow, Hanan Elatr Khashoggi, who expressed her concerns about the ad being insensitive and inaccurately portraying her late husband as an American.
“The commercial serves as a painful reminder of the circumstances surrounding my husband’s death, and I have been haunted by it every day for the past six years,” Hanan Elatr Khashoggi wrote in an email to Casey’s Senate office, as reported by POLITICO. “I do not take a stance on the political aspects of your Senate race, but I am committed to rectifying any misconceptions about my late husband.”
Jamal Khashoggi, known for his critical columns about Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in The Washington Post, was assassinated by Saudi government officials within the consulate, leading to a significant strain in U.S.-Saudi relations.
U.S. intelligence agencies later confirmed that the murder had been sanctioned by Prince Mohammed, the de facto leader of Saudi Arabia.
The ad from the Casey campaign accuses McCormick, a wealthy Republican entrepreneur, of pressuring his hedge fund to support the perpetrators of the crime to safeguard their investments in Saudi Arabia.
The widow objected to the portrayal of her husband as an American, given that he was a Saudi national residing in the U.S., and raised the issue with the campaign alongside her attorney, Randa Fahmy – a donor and self-described “good friend” of McCormick.
