Sen. Chris Murphy has asked top intelligence officials to investigate whether Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman hacked Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’s cellphone.
The Connecticut Democrat sent a letter to Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire and FBI Director Christopher Wray on Wednesday urging them to look deeper at the incident, according to the Hill. Murphy, who sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, asked Maguire and Wray to update Congress on all findings.
On Jan. 21, reports surfaced that Bezos’s phone was hacked and compromised through a virus sent to the Amazon CEO from Salman’s WhatsApp account. Bezos reportedly hired a team of investigators who claimed with “high confidence” that Saudis had accessed Bezos’s phone and took information from it.
Investigators with the United Nations also probed the hacking incident and came to a similar conclusion. The U.N. investigators determined “with reasonable certainty” that Bezos’s phone was hacked through an account associated with the Saudi crown prince. The U.N. called on U.S. officials to investigate the incident further.
Salman has denied any Saudi involvement in the hacking.
