The US senate has wasted no time in denouncing as fabrication Saudi Arabia’s continuing stance that the Crown Prince was not complicit in the Murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. This followed a briefing by CIA Director Gina Haspel on Tuesday.
Amongst the most vociferous was South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham who used superlatives such as as “a wrecking ball”, “crazy” and “dangerous” when describing the Saudi Royal. Regarding the evidence he is quoted as saying
“There is not a smoking gun – there is a smoking saw,”
The Senate is already planning to vote on a proposal to end US military support to the Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen, although the currently Republican controlled House of Representatives would undoubtedly block any such move, however this public condemnation will make life uncomfortable for the Saudi administration and will of course be hugely embarrassing to Donald Trump who continues to support them despite this being a blatant violation of international law.
Senator Chris Murphy from Connecticut summed the mood quite nicely with the tweet below:
At some point Washington needs to have a good hard talk about the over-classification of information.
Not everything needs to be secret.
For instance, if our government knows that Saudi leaders were involved in the murder of a U.S. resident, why shouldn’t the public know this?
— Chris Murphy (@ChrisMurphyCT) 4 December 2018
