Senate fails to override Trump’s Saudi arms sales veto

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump again succeeded in turning back bipartisan congressional efforts to rebuke his lock- step support for Saudi Arabia after the Senate failed Monday to override his veto on a series of measures that would have blocked billions of dollars of arms sales to the Persian Gulf region.

The failure is the second time in recent months that the Senate has been unable to muster enough opposition to beat a veto on a rebuke to the administration’s relationship with Saudi Arabia. That underscored that legislators’ anger over the kingdom’s murder of a dissident columnist and its bloody war in Yemen has its limits.

The measures, introduced by Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey, the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, sought to stymie the administration’s effort to circumvent Congress to sell munitions to the gulf nations by declaring an emergency over Iran. Mr. Menendez and other lawmakers had blocked some of those sales, but by declaring an emergency, the administration was able to blow through the blockades.

The defeat left lawmakers intent on penalizing the administration’s relationship with the kingdom pledging to redouble their efforts. Democratic senators and a handful of Republicans are pressing on, bitterly dividing the Foreign Relations Committee.

The committee advanced legislation last week, led by Mr. Menendez and Sen. Todd Young, R- Ind., that would impose mandatory sanctions on those found responsible for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist. The bill would also prohibit American refueling of Saudi coalition aircraft engaged in the civil war in Yemen and ban certain weapons sales to the kingdom. It is unlikely that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky will bring the legislation up for a vote.

But the passage of the legislation through committee over the chairman’s wishes was remarkable. It was the culmination of a bitter internal fight between Sen. Jim Risch of Idaho, the chairman and a Trump ally, and Mr. Menendez, who offered competing bills outlining a starkly different vision of how Congress should address the American relationship with Saudi Arabia.

Mr. Risch’s legislation would have directed the secretary of state to conduct a review of the relationship and deny or revoke visas to some members of the Saudi royal family as punishment for the kingdom’s human rights violations.

In the end, three panel Republicans — Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Mr. Young — broke ranks to support Mr. Menendez’s more punitive bill, and Mr. Risch withdrew his legislation.