WASHINGTON — After a closed-door CIA briefing Tuesday about the murder of U.S. resident and journalist Jamal Khashoggi, key Senate Republicans sharply contradicted President Donald Trump and said there was no question that Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman orchestrated the killing.
Senators said the briefing by CIA director Gina Haspel contrasted sharply with one last week by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Defense Secretary James N. Mattis, who echoed Trump’s position that it was unclear if the crown prince was personally involved with or aware of the murder.
“If (the crown prince) went in front of a jury, he would be convicted in 30 minutes,” Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., told reporters after emerging from the meeting.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who had demanded to hear directly from Haspel after she was noticeably absent from last week’s briefing, said the U.S. should end arms sales to Saudi Arabia.
“You have to be willfully blind not to come to the conclusion this was orchestrated and organized by people under the command of MBS,” he said, using the prince’s initials.
“There is not a smoking gun. There is a smoking saw,” he said, a gruesome reference to the journalist’s alleged dismemberment shortly after entering the Saudi consulate in Turkey Oct. 2.
Khashoggi, an opinion writer for The Washington Post, was an outspoken critic of the Saudi government.
The senators’ angry reaction gave momentum to congressional efforts to punish Saudi Arabia, despite Trump’s plea to refrain from such actions because they would endanger Saudi investment plans in the U.S.
It marked the strongest congressional pushback since lawmakers approved Russian sanctions earlier this year, over the objections of the Trump administration, in response to the 2016 election meddling.
Graham said Pompeo and Mattis, who said last week there is no conclusive evidence the prince orchestrated the murder, were “following the lead of the president” and that he assumes they’re being “good soldiers.”
Graham wants the Senate to release a statement before the end of the year that the crown prince was complicit in the murder and put the “region into chaos.” He also called for an end to arms sales to Saudi Arabia “as long as he’s going to be involved in this country.”
Saudi Arabia has been a key U.S. ally in the Middle East, but Graham warned that is not enough to overlook its leader’s role in the killing of Khashoggi.
“The relationship is worth saving, but not at all costs,” he said. “We’ll do more damage to our standing in the world and our national security by ignoring MBS than dealing with him.”
Congressional skepticism over Trump’s handling of the murder was already high. In a rare rebuke last week, the Senate advanced a resolution calling for an end to U.S. military support for Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen.
The resolution calls for a halt to U.S. military aid for the Saudi-led coalition that is battling Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen. The civil war has killed tens of thousands of civilians and become what aid workers call the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.
Fourteen Republicans joined Democrats in supporting the resolution, which passed a procedural vote 67-37.
