American Senators Say MbS Complicit 'to Highest Level Possible' in Khashoggi Murder

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) told reporters that if the crown prince were to go before a jury “he’d be convicted in 30 minutes”, The Hill reported.

"Crown Prince MBS ordered the killing, monitored the killing, knew exactly what was happening, planned it in advance,” Corker said after participating in a closed-door meeting with Haspel and other top-ranking senators, including Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.).

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) called the crown prince a “wrecking ball” who is “complicit in the murder of Mr. Khashoggi to the highest level possible”.

“There's not a smoking gun, there's a smoking saw. … You have to be willfully blind not to come to the conclusion that this was orchestrated and organized by people under the command of MBS and that he was intricately involved in the demise of Mr. Khashoggi,” Graham said, contradicting Defense Secretary James Mattis, who told reporters last week that there was “no smoking gun” connecting MbS to the killing.

"I would really question somebody's judgment if they couldn't figure this out — it is there to be figured out,” Graham added.

Haspel briefed the select group of senators after Graham threatened to hold up Senate business, including a must-pass funding bill, until the CIA director shared intelligence on the crown prince’s role in the killing.

The Senate is set to take up later this week or early next week a measure that would end US involvement in Saudi Arabia’s military operations in Yemen's war. Members have also floated additional sanctions on those believed to be behind Khashoggi’s killing.

The question is how to punish the crown prince without hurting the country, Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) stated.

"Somebody should be punished. Now the question is, how do you separate the Saudi crown prince and his group from the nation itself? That might be the real policy,” Shelby said as he left the briefing.

Corker stated that some in the Senate want to address the “killing of the journalist” while others "want to speak to the Yemen issue at large, trying to pool that together in a manner that's unified in Congress is difficult”.

“It would be really easy for the president to walk out into the press room today and just state that MBS killed a journalist, we know we killed a journalist, we know he ordered it, we know that he monitored it — these all people that are very close to him. And that is not acceptable for American standards,” Corker added.

US President Donald Trump has repeatedly refused to blame MbS directly for the slaying, saying “we may never know” who was responsible.

"If we abandon Saudi Arabia, it would be a terrible mistake," he told reporters last month.

"Right now, we have oil prices in great shape. I'm not going to destroy the world economy and I'm not going to destroy the economy for our country by being foolish with Saudi Arabia," the American president added.

For his part, Graham plans to introduce a statement officially implicating the crown prince in the death, coupled with sanctions set forth in the Magnitsky Act — a measure he introduced with Foreign Relations Committee ranking member Bob Menendez (D-N.J.).

"I will try to work my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, to send a statement before the end of this Congress, that in fact the crown prince was complicit in the murder of Mr. Khashoggi, that during his tenure as crown prince he's put in the region in chaos and has undercut the relationship and I cannot support arms sales to Saudi Arabia as long as he is going to be in charge of this country. The war in Yemen has gotten out of control, the brutality of this murder is beyond my sharing it with you,” Graham stressed.

Schumer stated on Tuesday that Haspel should meet with the full Senate after holding a closed-door briefing with roughly 10 senators earlier that day.

“While I will not discuss the content of the Haspel briefing, it reinforced the need for a strong response to the murder of Jamal Khashoggi," Schumer said in a statement, adding that "CIA Director Haspel should brief the full Senate without delay".

Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate, also called for Haspel to meet with the entire chamber to brief lawmakers on the death of Khashoggi.

"Every Senator should hear what I heard this afternoon," Durbin said in a statement, adding that "CIA Director Haspel must brief the full Senate immediately".

 Both Schumer and Durbin attended Tuesday's closed-door briefing with Haspel, who made the trip to Capitol Hill about a week after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Mattis briefed the full Senate.

Her absence at that meeting enraged some senators, who warned it was a strategic misstep to not have her in the room after she traveled to Turkey to lead the investigation into Khashoggi's slaying.

Haspel's briefing came after the Senate advanced a resolution that would end US support for the Saudi-led military campaign in Yemen by a 63-37 vote. The chamber is expected to vote next week on whether to begin debate on the measure.

Limiting Tuesday's briefing to certain Senate committee leaders rankled members who are deeply involved in the Saudi fight but not invited to attend.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) called the meeting an example of the "deep state”, questioning why every senator wasn’t allowed to participate.

"The deep state wants to keep everyone in the dark. This is just ridiculous!," Paul said in a tweet ahead of the briefing.

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) noted that he and the other two sponsors of the Senate resolution — Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) — would not be at the briefing.

"It is outrageous that the White House is still hiding what they know about the Khashoggi murder from Congress," Murphy stated, adding that "White House only letting leadership into this briefing".

He lamented in a separate tweet that Washington has an "over-classification" program.

"For instance, if our government knows that Saudi leaders were involved in the murder of a US resident, why shouldn’t the public know this?" Murphy asked.

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