The State Department is so far ignoring calls from Congress to expel Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the United States to protest the country’s role in the death of dissident Jamal Khashoggi.
“We’re not going to get into hypotheticals,” a State Department spokesperson told the Washington Examiner.
That response came after a senior Senate Democrat called for President Trump to expel Prince Khalid bin Salman, the brother of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, as a response to Khashoggi’s death. The execution, which took place in a Saudi diplomatic facility in Turkey, outraged lawmakers of both parties and intensified bipartisan pressure to rebuke the oil-rich monarchy for a range of humanitarian abuses.
“Unless the Saudi kingdom understands that civilized countries around the world reject this conduct and make sure that a price is paid, the Saudis will continue to do it,” Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said while reiterating his call for Prince Khalid’s expulsion.
Prince Khalid returned to Washington on Wednesday, according to NBC, concluding a two-month stint in Saudi Arabia following the Khashoggi killing. The prince played a personal role in the Saudi attempt to cover up Khashoggi’s murder in the immediate aftermath.
Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Corker, R-Tenn., accused him of lying when they discussed the case, when Prince Khalid claimed that Saudi Arabia couldn’t provide video evidence that Khashoggi left the consulate alive because their security cameras could “only live-stream” rather than record footage.
“That was pretty hard for me to believe, and I shared that with him,” Corker told reporters at the time. “It feels very much like some nefarious activity has occurred by them.”
Trump has imposed sanctions on the individual members of the kill team, as well as a senior royal adviser, but Pompeo maintains that “there’s no direct evidence” necessitating sanctions on the crown prince.
“That is a accurate statement, it is an important statement, and it is the statement that we are making publicly today,” Pompeo said last week. “[The Saudi-U.S. relationship is] a relationship that has mattered for 70 years across Republican and Democrat administrations alike. It remains an important relationship, and we’re aiming to keep that relationship with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.”
Key senators have disputed those comments, even after a pair of briefings — one with Pompeo and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, the other with CIA Director Gina Haspel — that the administration hoped would mollify some of the lawmakers most determined to rebuke the crown prince directly.
“He murdered him, no question in my mind,” Corker said Tuesday, according to USA Today. “The crown prince directed the murder and was kept apprised of the situation all the way through.”
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., suggested that Pompeo is being a “good soldier” for the president in his public pronouncements. “I think the reason they don’t draw the conclusion that he’s complicit is because the administration doesn’t want to go down that road, not because there’s not evidence,” Graham said.
[Read more: Lindsey Graham: I feel ‘played,’ ‘used’ by Saudi crown prince]
The controversy has spurred a bipartisan effort to pass a resolution ending U.S. support for Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen, where Iranian-backed rebels overthrew the Saudi-friendly government. But that move is a bridge too far for some Republicans who want to maintain the U.S.-Saudi partnership against Iran.
“I would not be disputing what Mattis and Pompeo, how they briefed us,” Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, told the Washington Examiner minutes after he reviewed CIA documents pertaining to the Khashoggi case. “I think it’s important that the U.S. maintains influence in the Middle East and with Saudi Arabia. … What I don’t want to do is cut off our nose to spite our face.”
