Senators: Saudi prince complicit in murder

GOP lawmakers break with Trump on Khashoggi

Washington — Senators emerged from an unusual closed-door briefing with the CIA director on Tuesday and accused the Saudi crown prince of complicity in the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

In some of their strongest statements to date, lawmakers said evidence presented by the U.S. spy agency overwhelmingly pointed to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s involvement in the assassination.

“There’s not a smoking gun, there’s a smoking saw,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., referring to the bone saw that investigators believe was used to dismember Khashoggi after he was killed by a team of Saudi agents inside the country’s consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2.

Armed with classified details provided by President Donald Trump’s handpicked CIA director, Gina Haspel, senators shredded the arguments put forward by senior administration officials who had earlier insisted that the evidence of Mohammed’s alleged role is inconclusive.

The gulf that has emerged between Republican lawmakers and the president over how to respond to the journalist’s murder appeared to widen after Tuesday’s briefing, with Graham, one of Trump’s closest Senate allies, announcing he was no longer willing to work with the crown prince, whom the White House regards as one its most important allies in the Middle East.

In recent days, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis have said that no single piece of evidence irrefutably links Mohammed to the killing. But the senators, in effect, said that doesn’t matter, because the evidence they heard convinced them beyond the shadow of a doubt.

“If the Crown Prince went in front of a jury, he would be convicted in 30 minutes,” said Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., the chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations.

Haspel, who had declined to appear alongside Mattis and Pompeo at a briefing on U.S.-Saudi policy for the full Senate last week, was joined by agency personnel and gave what lawmakers described as a compelling and decisive presentation of the evidence that the CIA has analyzed since Khashoggi, a Washington Post contributing columnist, was killed.

“We heard the clearest testimony I’ve heard from intelligence this morning,” Corker said later during a confirmation hearing for Trump administration nominees. “I’ve been here 12 years; I’ve never heard, ever, a presentation like was made today.”