It appears President Trump is putting cash before human rights, as senators left a briefing by CIA Director Gina Haspel today convinced that the Saudi crown prince was involved in Jamal Khashoggi’s murder, in spite of Trump’s claims that the evidence does not implicate him.
“There’s not a smoking gun, there’s a smoking saw,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said after the briefing.
Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Corker told reporters: “I have zero question in my mind that the crown prince directed the murder … zero question.”
“To let it stand, in essence allows somebody like MBS to continue with immunity which is inappropriate,” Corker said. “This cannot stand. I would much rather … the administration speak to this.”
Trump has spoken on the matter, however, and he claimed the CIA had found no evidence connecting the murder to the crown prince.
The unbridled anger toward MBS after a meeting between top Senate leaders and Haspel suggests that the chamber will move swiftly to punish the Saudi regime in the coming days.
Republican senators in particularly were biting in their assessments of both MBS and the Trump administration, which has declined to assert that the Saudi prince ordered Khashoggi’s murder at the Saudi Arabian consulate in Turkey in October.
Haspel briefed a select group of senators this morning on Khashoggi’s murder at the insistence of lawmakers demanding an assessment on the Saudi crown prince’s knowledge of the death.
The rank and file were excluded, though, and Sen. Rand Paul went on the war path.
He accused bad actors in the Trump administration, “the deep state,” of withholding information that could implicate Mohammed bin Salman in Khashoggi’s murder.
Paul, who sits on the Foreign Relations committee, said he has a right to be briefed on matters that will affect his vote on the United States’ military support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen.
“I think the time has come for the Senate to grab back foreign policy and say that you know what, the president, no president, this president or the previous president, has the power to take our country to war with Saudi Arabia and Yemen without the permission of the president,” Paul told reporters on Capitol Hill as the briefing with Haspel was being conducted.
Graham charged in a Monday night op-ed that Trump was engaging in ‘willful blindness’ when it comes to the Saudi crown prince and that he and 62 other senators were right to vote they way they did last week on Yemen.
“Given the evidence U.S. intelligence has gathered on Khashoggi’s killing, denying the crown prince’s involvement amounts to willful blindness. Failing to censure him would give authoritarians a green light to murder their critics,’ he said. ‘To borrow a Churchill phrase, inaction wouldn’t only give the disturbing impression the U.S. has a price, but also that its price is quite low.”
Trump could be defending Saudi Arabia because he’s done millions of dollars worth of business there.
Son-in-law Jared Kushner also has a massive amount of business dealings in Saudi Arabia.
Trump registered eight companies during his presidential campaign that were tied to hotel interests in that country.
The companies were registered under names such as THC Jeddah Hotel and DT Jeddah Technical Services, according to financial disclosure filings.
During a rally in 2015, the day Trump created four of those companies, he said he gets along well with Saudi Arabia.
“They buy apartments from me. They spend $40 million, $50 million. Am I supposed to dislike them? I like them very much.”
After his election, Trump said on Fox News he “would want to protect Saudi Arabia.”