‘This can’t be the end of the matter’: Advocates, lawmakers press Biden to punish Saudi crown prince

WASHINGTON – Several prominent human rights advocates blasted President Joe Biden on Tuesday for failing to directly penalize Saudi Arabia’s crown prince for his role in the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.

It comes as Democrats in Congress are also calling for a more aggressive U.S. response targeting Mohammad Bin Salman, with lawmakers actively considering legislative options if the Biden administration refuses to sanction the crown prince.

“This can’t be the end of the matter,” Sen. Bob Menendez, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told a handful of reporters during a roundtable Tuesday.

The growing discontent – even among staunch Biden allies – comes less than two weeks after the administration released a declassified intelligence report linking the Saudi crown prince to Khashoggi’s murder. The report concluded that Bin Salman approved the operation to “capture or kill” Khashoggi, an American resident and critic of the Saudi regime, when he entered a Saudi consulate in Turkey in 2018.

The Trump administration refused to release that report, even though it was mandated by Congress, and the previous administration maintained close ties with Saudi Arabia despite international outrage over the killing. During the 2000 presidential campaign, Biden vowed to take a tougher line with the Saudis.

“They have to be held accountable.” Biden said during the campaign. “We are going to make them pay the price and make them, in fact, the pariah that they are.”

A handout picture provided by the Saudi Royal Palace on Dec. 24, 2020 shows Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman attending by videoconference a meeting with Bahrain's Crown Prince of the Saudi-Bahraini Coordinating Council. (Photo: Bandar al-Jaloud, Saudi Royal Palace/AFP via Getty)

Biden won plaudits for releasing the intelligence assessment, but critics say he didn’t follow through. Secretary of State Antony Blinken quickly made it clear the White House would not target MBS, as he is known, and would instead impose visa restrictions on other individuals involved in Khashoggi’s murder, among other steps.

“Meet the new boss, same as the old boss, at least with regard to the relationship with Saudi Arabia,” said Thor Halvorssen, founder of the Human Rights Foundation, which helped fund a documentary on Khashoggi’s slaying called “The Dissident.” Halvorssen and several human rights advocates held a call with reporters Tuesday to denounce Biden’s Saudi policy.

Biden’s aides have defended his handling of the situation, arguing that the president’s goal is to rebuke the kingdom while preserving an important alliance.

“Our objective is to recalibrate the relationship, prevent this from ever happening again and find ways … to work together with Saudi leadership,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said earlier this month. She noted that the U.S. doesn’t typically sanction the leaders of other countries with which it has diplomatic relations.

But advocates warn that if the Biden administration does not directly punish MBS, it will give a green light to other authoritarian leaders that they can reach beyond their borders to silence critics.

“Khashoggi is only the most visible and terrible example of a global phenomenon that is really increasingly worrisome,” Michael Abramowitz, president of Freedom House, a human rights group, said on Tuesday’s call.

“All around the world, including in this very country, there are dissidents or critics who are being harassed, who are being illegally rendered, who are being spied on by authoritarian countries,” he said. The Biden administration has to “wake up” to this trend and take stronger action to protect those who have fled authoritarian regimes.

Khashoggi was living in self-imposed exile in the U.S. after becoming a fierce critic of the crown prince. He went into the Saudi consulate in Turkey to get paperwork he needed for his upcoming marriage. Once inside, a team of Saudi operatives killed him and dismembered his body.

Years later, the case still stirs outrage in Congress. In the House, Rep. Tom Malinowski, D-N.J., has introduced legislation that would ban the crown prince from visiting the U.S., among other penalties.

“I applaud the Biden administration for naming MBS as Khashoggi’s killer, but it undercuts our message to Saudi Arabia if we accuse him of the crime and then do nothing to hold him accountable,” Malinowski said in a March 1 statement unveiling the bill.

Menendez said he has asked his staff to review “all of the potential options that could be taken to create greater accountability” for Khashoggi’s murder. If the Biden administration doesn’t agree to take further steps, Menendez said, he would push for legislative remedies, though he declined to say what options are under consideration.

Bill Browder, a human rights activist who pushed Congress to enact a sweeping human rights and anti-corruption sanctions law in 2017, said he hopes lawmakers will step up where the Biden administration has not.

“I would imagine that there’s a pretty strong bipartisan consensus to do something,” Browder said on Tuesday’s call. “It also, by the way, gives gives Biden a way out. He can say to Mohammed Bin Salman, ‘You know … I tried but this is how it works in America’.”

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