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The approval would have allowed members of the Saudi Royal Guard to enter the United States on visas processed by the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh. The path is similar to that followed by First Lieutenant Muhammad Al-Shamrani, the Royal Saudi Air Force officer who opened fire in 2019 on a Naval Air Force base in Pensacola, Florida, where he was receiving military flight training. The attack killed three people and wounded eight.
The Tier 1 Group was founded to train U.S. military personnel, taking advantage of an expanded Pentagon budget to train military personnel in basic counterinsurgency skills, according to former U.S. officials familiar with its operations.
One of the company’s founders, Steve Reichert, a former Marine, was working as a trainer for the then-known security contractor Blackwater when he met Mr. Feinberg. With Mr. Feinberg’s support, Mr. Reichert created Tier 1 Group, according to Mr. Reichert’s 2020 account of the company’s founders and former intelligence officials familiar with the effort.
But when US military training budgets began to shrink, the company, like other private security companies, began looking for new customers. By 2014, it began training foreign military units, including the Saudis.
Clark Cooper, assistant secretary of state for political and military affairs during the Trump administration, said decisions about licensing US companies to train foreign nationals are usually made after getting input from several government agencies. He said the Pentagon and intelligence agencies often play a role.
He said, “These things do not come out of the ether.”
Cooper said he could not recall any discussion of the Level 1 group training for the Saudis, even after Khashoggi’s murder. He said there was extensive deliberation within the Trump administration about how to respond to the murder after the government concluded that Prince Mohammed likely approved it.
In the end, he said, administration officials did not want to squander America’s relationship with the kingdom – and the strategy of isolating Iran – by taking a hard line after Mr. Khashoggi’s death.
“No government is going to stir up an important bilateral relationship over this murder, no matter how horrific,” he said.
Adam Goldman contributed reporting.
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