[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 106 (Monday, June 24, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4470-S4472]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        DEATH OF JAMAL KHASHOGGI

  Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, tonight I am going to speak about Saudi 
Arabia's brutal murder of U.S. resident and journalist Jamal Khashoggi. 
This despicable act has been condemned by the Congress, by the American 
people, and by governments and citizens around the world, but Donald 
Trump and members of his administration will not talk about it. They 
seem to think it is just fine to sweep this atrocity under the rug. I 
am here to describe why the Congress must not let that happen and how I 
intend to do everything in my power to make sure it does not happen.
  The Senate is now debating the Defense Authorization Act, which this 
year includes the Intelligence Authorization Act. I serve on the Senate 
Select Committee on Intelligence, and the Intelligence bill that is 
part of the defense legislation contains an amendment I offered with my 
colleagues, Senator Heinrich, Senator Harris, Senator Feinstein, and 
Senator Bennet. That amendment requires that the Director of National 
Intelligence provide a public report identifying those who carried out, 
participated in, ordered, or were otherwise responsible for the killing 
of Mr. Khashoggi.
  Last Wednesday, the United Nations released a detailed report on the 
Khashoggi murder. The report described how even before Mr. Khashoggi 
entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Saudi officials had 
meticulously planned his killing.
  A team of more than a dozen Saudi agents were organized. Their travel 
and accommodations were designed to mask the purpose of their trip to 
Turkey. The consulate office where the killing took place was cleared 
of staff. In the moments before Mr. Khashoggi's arrival at the 
consulate, the Saudi agents were recorded discussing how to kill and 
dismember him and dispose of his body.
  They referred to Mr. Khashoggi as ``the sacrificial animal.'' The 
report even describes the recorded sounds of the killing and the 
dismemberment.
  Who bears ultimate responsibility for this brutal, horrendous, 
despicable crime? The U.N. report stated that every expert--every 
expert--who was consulted found it inconceivable that an operation of 
this scale could be implemented without the Crown Prince. They found 
that, at the very least, being aware that some kind of criminal act was 
to be conducted against Mr. Khashoggi was, in their view, clearly, 
something the Crown Prince knew about.
  The U.N. then concluded that there was ``credible evidence warranting 
further investigation of high-level Saudi officials' individual 
liability, including the Crown Prince.'' I have read that directly from 
the U.N. report.
  The Senate has also spoken on this in a resolution passed 
unanimously. The Senate stated that it believes the Crown Prince is 
responsible for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi.

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  Donald Trump and his administration refuse to discuss this publicly. 
Last November, Donald Trump said the intelligence community was 
continuing to assess information about the killing, but as for the 
question of whether the Crown Prince had knowledge, the President said 
only: ``Maybe he did and maybe he didn't.'' Then he said: ``We may 
never know all the facts.''
  So we have, in the Intelligence Committee, something at the beginning 
of the year called an open threats hearing. It is a public hearing. At 
that open threats hearing, I asked the CIA Director whether the 
Senate's unanimous belief that the Crown Prince was responsible was 
correct. She acknowledged that the Khashoggi murder was premeditated. 
In terms of who was responsible, she referred us to what the Saudis had 
said publicly, but Director Haspel said she would not disclose to the 
public what the intelligence community thought with respect to who was 
involved in the brutal murder of Mr. Khashoggi. That is why there is a 
provision in the Intelligence Authorization Act that we are 
considering as a part of this Defense bill, requiring a public report 
on the Khashoggi killing. The provision is there so, finally, more than 
8 months after the murder, there will finally be some real 
accountability.

  Now, those who may be following these remarks or this discussion may 
ask: Why does this matter? Why is this important? It matters because 
the Trump administration has bent over backward to please the dictator 
running Saudi Arabia.
  The U.N. report recommended an FBI investigation of the Khashoggi 
murder. Donald Trump made it clear that he is not interested in that 
either. It is part of a pattern. In one of the most dismal and 
disappointing responses I have seen to any national security concern, 
this administration refuses to look into whether Saudi officials helped 
Saudi criminal suspects flee the United States to escape justice.
  The administration continues to turn a blind eye to the Saudi 
Government's grotesque human rights abuses. Donald Trump vetoed 
bipartisan legislation that would have ended U.S. support for a 
devastating and seemingly endless war in Yemen. The President recently 
invoked what I consider to be a phony emergency to go around Congress 
and sell arms to the Saudis. Example after example, whether it is 
within our borders, in a consulate office in Istanbul, or elsewhere, 
this administration's record is the same. They will help cover up the 
Saudi Government's brutality.
  Jamal Khashoggi, besides being a U.S. resident, was a journalist who 
wrote for a U.S. newspaper. The absence of accountability for his 
murder sends a horrendous message that as far as the Trump 
administration is concerned, it is open season on journalists. Donald 
Trump is making this clear when he cozies up to dictators cracking down 
on journalists in Russia, Hungary, and the Philippines. That doesn't 
even include his affection for the dictator of North Korea, where we 
all know there is no press at all.
  Donald Trump's contempt for a free press in the United States is as 
apparent as it is dangerous. The White House and Pentagon have simply 
stopped all press briefings. Donald Trump has threatened to use the 
taxation and antitrust powers of the government to punish the media 
when they dare to criticize him. At his rallies, he has whipped up 
support against the media to the point where people are threatening 
journalists in attendance. Almost every day, he dismisses any media 
outlet that accurately describes what he disagrees with, with respect 
to their comments, the corruption in his administration, as fake news. 
Recently, he accused journalists at the New York Times of treason after 
they dared to publish a story that displeased him.
  The Trump administration created a secret list of journalists it 
targeted for tracking and questioning--journalists who were reporting 
on the administration's cruel treatment of migrants at the southern 
border. Border agents have even detained journalists--American 
citizens--and subjected them to prying and detailed questions about 
their travel and their work.
  Most ominously, over and over, he called journalists enemies of the 
people. That is language that is designed to justify state repression 
or vigilante violence against journalists. It is also language that 
comes, unfortunately, directly from the worst dictators in history. 
That is based on the record, based on the public statements I am 
walking through tonight. That is what Donald Trump thinks of the press, 
which is why the Saudis told him that Jamal Khashoggi was an enemy of 
the state.
  As far as I can tell, the President seems to believe that first 
amendment freedom of the press basically should only apply to people 
who say nice things about him.
  I don't know of any such provision in the First Amendment about which 
the Founding Fathers felt so strongly. They thought freedom of the 
press was almost as important as anything else people could imagine. 
The Founding Fathers didn't in any way suggest the First Amendment 
applies to discussing only nice things about someone who is a public 
official. Reporting facts to the public on corruption in the 
administration and the President's tax cheating, on the administration 
policy of locking up migrant children in cages without beds, soap, or 
toothbrushes--Donald Trump evidently considers all of this to be a 
treasonous act.
  The brutal, premeditated murder of Jamal Khashoggi is, in my view, 
the canary in the coal mine for press freedom around the world. These 
are dangerous times for journalists. It is already a dangerous career 
in many countries. If dictators see the killing of Jamal Khashoggi as a 
signal that they, too, can get away with cold-blooded murder, then the 
question is, How many more journalists and dissidents are going to die?
  That is why, as a member of the Intelligence Committee, I am tonight 
drawing the line right here. For me, the events of the last week have 
only highlighted the urgency of this issue. In a nationally televised 
interview aired just yesterday, Donald Trump was asked repeatedly about 
the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. Each time he kept coming back to Saudi 
money. He said: ``Take their money.'' And he repeated it: ``Take their 
money.''
  I disagree that U.S. arms sales to Saudi Arabia somehow mean that 
they have all the leverage and that the United States is helpless, but 
even more important, the message that impunity for a brutal murder can 
be bought is both repulsive and dangerous.
  Right now, Donald Trump is telling the Saudis and every other 
dictator in the world that for the right price, you can murder a U.S.-
based journalist you don't like. You can dismember his body, and you 
can make it disappear. As far as Donald Trump is concerned, what we 
have seen recently is that the lives of journalists are for sale.
  In the same interview, Donald Trump was also asked about the U.N.'s 
call for an investigation into the Khashoggi murder. He made it clear 
that, again, he would resist any public accountability. He said the 
murder had already been ``heavily investigated'' and that he had seen 
``so many different reports.'' Well, it is time for the American 
people, the Congress, and everyone around the world fighting for press 
freedom to see the reports.
  Something else happened last week that I thought was also very 
important for the Senate to reflect on. Jamal Khashoggi's fiancee wrote 
an extremely important essay in the New York Times. She wrote: 
``Washington has chosen not to use its strong ties and leverage with 
Riyadh to get the Saudis to reveal the truth about Jamal's murder and 
to ensure those responsible are held accountable.''
  Jamal Khashoggi's fiancee described her meetings with Members of 
Congress who are sympathetic but were embarrassed that nothing had been 
done, and this is what she concluded:
  ``I began to feel that Jamal had not only died in Istanbul but also 
in Washington.''
  This must not be the last chapter. The U.S. Congress must demonstrate 
that the fight for press freedom does not die in the Nation's Capital.
  To describe how I intend to proceed here, you have to give a little 
bit of a sense of how the Intelligence Committee works. The 
Intelligence Committee accepts as boilerplate that we always keep 
classified what are called

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sources and methods. It is just automatic in the consideration of any 
business before us and before the Congress. That is because we so 
admire--I know the Presiding Officer feels this way--we so admire those 
who work in the intelligence field and in the national security field, 
and should sources and methods be exposed, we can have people who are 
helping to keep us safe die. So we put it in every bill.
  In order to get my amendment to make sure that we would actually have 
the American people get the information that the intelligence community 
has about how Mr. Khashoggi died, I accepted boilerplate language about 
protecting sources and methods. But I want to be clear--because the 
intelligence community has, in effect, bobbed and weaved around this 
issue for some time--that if the intelligence community attempts to use 
that boilerplate language to avoid real accountability and real 
transparency, I am going to fight them tooth and nail, and that 
includes using the procedure, which I will describe tonight, that is 
available to members of the Senate committee to get information to the 
American people.
  I am going to be specific here just for a moment. I am going to 
describe section 8 of S. Res. 400, which allows members of the 
Intelligence Committee to initiate a process that ultimately would 
permit the Senate to release information over the objection of the 
President of the United States. I don't make this statement lightly. I 
don't make threats lightly, and I hope it doesn't come to this.
  I hope the intelligence community finally adheres to the intent of 
the provision in this legislation and tells the American people and the 
world what it knows about the death of Mr. Khashoggi. But if the 
intelligence community stonewalls again--once again blocks the truth 
from the American people--I am not going to rest. The stakes are too 
high. Press freedom here and around the world must survive. 
Intimidation and murder cannot be allowed to stand.
  I state tonight that I will use S. Res. 400 and every tool at my 
disposal to finally get this long overdue information about the death 
of Jamal Khashoggi to the American people.
  I yield the floor.
  I note that my colleague from Oregon, who is doing important work, is 
here and I am sure wishes to speak now.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Sullivan). The Senator from Oregon.

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