President Joe Biden has not met with the widow or family of murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi ahead of his pending trip to Saudi Arabia.
Biden national security adviser Jake Sullivan spoke to the press on Monday about the trip, but when his prepared remarks ended, the first questions he was asked concerned Khashoggi and whether Biden has met with his family.
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“We have had contact with Jamal Khashoggi’s family. The president has not himself spoken with them,” Sullivan said, without elaborating. “But [Biden] has been focused on this issue from the beginning. As he said when he took office, and as we have stuck by since then, our goal has been to recalibrate but not rupture the relationship with Saudi Arabia.”
The president has faced repeated scrutiny over the decision to meet with Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s de facto leader, after promising to hold the kingdom accountable for the brutal 2018 murder of Khashoggi.
A U.S. intelligence report released after Biden took office charged that the crown prince was responsible for the former Washington Post columnist’s assassination.
Biden’s visit to Saudi Arabia has stirred controversy, as the president pledged on the campaign trail to make the “pariah” kingdom “pay.”
Sullivan stressed the other reasons for the trip, such as U.S. security interests, the war in Yemen, energy security, and “stopping terrorism.”
Biden himself also defended the trip via a Washington Post opinion piece, arguing the United States has to “engage directly” with countries like Saudi Arabia, as he aims to strengthen a partnership with the country “based on mutual interests and responsibilities, while also holding true to fundamental American values.”
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Khashoggi’s widow, Hanan Elatr, has repeatedly sought a meeting with Biden before he leaves so she can ask him to push for the release of political prisoners in the kingdom. That effort appears to have been unsuccessful.
When asked by another journalist if Biden would bring up Khashoggi’s murder in his meeting with MBS, Sullivan did not answer directly.
“I’m not going to characterize what the president will say privately in those sessions,” he said. “I’ll let the president do that, have the opportunity to have his engagement on human rights-related issues and other issues. And then, of course, you’ll have the opportunity to ask him about that after the trip occurs.”
