Ron Wyden: If Trump Admin Won't Release Report on Jamal Khashoggi Slaying, Then I Will

By Gordon R. Friedman, OregonLive

25 June 19

.S. Sen. Ron Wyden said Monday that if intelligence officials would not release a report on the slaying of journalist Jamal Khashoggi then he would invoke a Senate rule forcing its publication.

In a speech on the Senate floor, the Democrat said the administration of President Donald Trump had sought to downplay Khashoggi’s killing, including the president himself, who has wavered on placing blame for the journalist’s death on the Saudi crown prince.

Khashoggi was an American resident and Washington Post columnist when he was killed and dismembered at a Saudi embassy in Turkey. The death of Khashoggi, who had written critically about the Saudi government, sparked an international backlash and unanimous rebuke from the U.S. Senate, but Trump has resisted reprimanding his Saudi allies.

A United Nations report found Khashoggi was targeted by a team of Saudi assassins who had carefully planned the killing and took steps to cover their tracks.

Wyden and four other senators have attached an amendment to the annual defense funding bill that would require the director of national intelligence, Dan Coats, to file a public report about the killing, including who ordered it and carried it out.

“That provision is there so that, finally, more than eight months after the murder, there can be some transparency and accountability,” Wyden said.

If the intelligence community does not abide by that language then he will invoke an obscure Senate rule that allows senators to release public information over the objections of the president.

“I do not make this threat lightly,” Wyden said, adding he hopes the using the rule does not become necessary.

“But if not, I will not rest," he said, explaining that press freedom should be promoted and “intimidation and murder cannot be allowed to stand.”