WASHINGTON — A divide immediately arose Saturday between President Trump’s initial acceptance of Saudi Arabia’s response to the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi and senators in both parties who stepped up calls for sanctions and pressed the administration to do its own investigation.
“The story the Saudis have told about Jamal Khashoggi’s disappearance continues to change with each passing day, so we should not assume their latest story holds water,” said Sen. Bob Corker (R., Tenn.), who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “They can undergo their own investigation, but the U.S. administration must make its own independent, credible determination of responsibility for Khashoggi’s murder.”
After the Saudis conceded Friday that Khashoggi had been killed at their consulate in Istanbul — saying a brawl had broken out there — Trump called the revised explanation credible.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) was even more dubious. “To say that I am skeptical of the new Saudi narrative about Mr. Khashoggi is an understatement,” he tweeted. “It’s hard to find this latest ‘explanation’ as credible.”
Twitter Embedding a tweet from the New York Times reporting the latest Saudi explanation for the death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a legal U.S. resident, Sen. Lindsey Graham says he is beyond skeptical.
See: Saudi Arabia tried to develop a mole inside Twitter: report
Democrats criticized the Trump administration for not applying more pressure to the Saudi royal family. “If ever a story reeked of a cover-up, it is this one,” said Sen. Patrick Leahy (D., Vt.). “Our country must not be complicit in this cover-up.”
The Saudis said Friday that Khashoggi, a critic of the government who had been living in the U.S., died following an altercation inside the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2. Khashoggi was at the consulate for marriage-related documents. The Saudi statement said 18 Saudi citizens had been detained pending the final results of a continuing investigation.
An expanded version of this report appears at WSJ.com.
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