American television journalist Rachel Maddow[18] pointed to reports by foreign affairs columnist David Ignatius explaining that Asiri planned to create a "tiger team"[19] for covert Special operations.[1][20] As "informed sources" in Washington were trying to work out who the possible scapegoat for the Khashoggi execution might be,[21] and because Asiri also was the "point of contact" for crown prince Mohammad's offers of help to the 2016 Trump presidential campaign, which were part of Robert Mueller's investigation.[22][23] Asiri would be the "two birds with one stone" cover up story. But retired US diplomats, like Barbara Bodine, a retired US ambassador to Yemen, and intelligence officials, like Bruce Riedel, a former CIA official at the Brookings Institution, were "already signalling that the line is a nonstarter".[24]