The effort to pry details from the Trump administration underscores the ongoing tensions between Congress and the White House.
The bipartisan leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee are demanding that the Trump administration disclose information about the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.
Sens. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) and Mark Warner (D-Va.), the chairman and vice chairman of the panel, sent a letter to acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell on Monday asking him to declassify key details about Khashoggi’s brutal 2018 killing, according to a source familiar with the matter. Their letter follows a similar effort by House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), who wrote to Grenell separately last week.
The Trump administration was required under a provision in the National Defense Authorization Act to reveal its formal determination of who was responsible for Khashoggi’s murder and dismemberment — which was carried out inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul — by late January. The intelligence community has yet to make a public declaration as required by law, only sending a classified report to Capitol Hill.
Lawmakers have been briefed multiple times on Khashoggi’s murder, but the Trump administration has yet to publicly acknowledge what senators from both parties said was clear to them from the briefings: that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the killing and was kept apprised of the government-led operation to murder and dismember Khashoggi, a Saudi citizen and legal U.S. resident who was highly critical of the regime.
The bipartisan effort to pry details from the Trump administration underscores the ongoing tensions between Congress and the White House over the U.S.’s posture toward Saudi Arabia. President Donald Trump has buttressed the Saudi crown prince’s denials of involvement in the murder, and the administration as a whole has resisted bipartisan pressure to sanction the Saudi government and cut off U.S. weapons sales to the kingdom.
The Post first reported on the joint letter from Burr and Warner.
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-N.J.), who authored the Khashoggi provision in the defense bill, held a news conference on Tuesday to bring further attention to the issue. Wyden plans to force a release of the intelligence community’s assessment of Khashoggi’s killing, using a procedural motion through the original Senate resolution that created the Senate Intelligence Committee.
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The bipartisan leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee are demanding that the Trump administration disclose information about the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi https://t.co/dgsawzKvM4
— POLITICO (@politico) March 3, 2020
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