Khashoggi briefing dissatisfied

Senate Republicans leave Khashoggi briefing dissatisfied

By MARIANNE LEVINE

Senate Republicans on the Foreign Relations Committee appeared dissatisfied with a Trump administration briefing Monday on the murder of Saudi Arabian journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

The briefing came after the administration said in February that it had the right not to comply with demands from lawmakers under the Magnitsky Act, which requires that the president provide Congress with a report on Khashoggi’s killing. President Donald Trump has refused to implicate Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for the murder, despite reported conclusions from U.S. intelligence officials that he ordered the killing — angering members of his own party.

Monday’s briefing from Manisha Singh, acting undersecretary for economic growth, energy and the environment at the State Department, and Andrea Gacki, director of the Office of Foreign Assets Control at the Treasury Department, offered little comfort to lawmakers.

“We learned very little,” said Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), a member of the Foreign Relations Committee. Another Republican senator said that nothing said in the meeting was a game changer.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who has criticized the Trump administration over its handling of the Khashoggi murder, said that ultimately “Magnitsky is a decision to be made by the president.” Rubio predicted that it would be up to the Senate to determine the next steps.

“The Senate will have to decide whether it’s going to impose its own sanctions,” he said.

Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist, was murdered in October inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. Saudi officials initially insisted that he had left the consulate unharmed, but now say he was killed during an interrogation gone wrong.