Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., on Thursday pushed Vice President Mike Pence to take punitive action in a matter of days against Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for the death of dissident Jamal Khashoggi before Congress takes matters into its own hands.
The Senate is set next week to embark on a rare and potentially lengthy war powers debate that could end up with the passage of legislation to limit or end U.S. support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen.
But Corker and other senators are hoping to dodge the entire exercise by convincing the Trump administration to move on its own, and Corker gave Pence an earful on the matter at a closed-door Republican lunch on Thursday.
“I talked to him privately,” said Corker, who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, after the lunch. “I’d much prefer that the administration figure out a way to address this.”
If nothing happens, the Senate will move ahead with debate next week on a bill that would ban the United States from supporting the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen, which is battling Iran-backed Houthis.
Pence frequently drops in on GOP lunches in the Senate, and this week Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., was in charge of the menu, which featured Mexican food. Over lunch, Corker and others pressed Pence to press Trump to do something about Khashoggi’s murder.
The CIA concluded the crown prince directed the killing of Khashoggi, an outspoken critic of the Saudi government, Washington Post columnist, and U.S. resident. He was murdered in October at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, and his body has never been recovered.
President Trump has ordered sanctions for 17 Saudi officials involved, but he has spared the crown prince any rebuke, which has angered lawmakers in both parties who feel Crown Prince Mohammed has essentially gotten away with murder. This week, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis each played up the need to maintain the relationship with Saudi Arabia.
But lawmakers want Trump to take some action, even while supporting Trump’s desire to preserve U.S.-Saudi relations.
“From my perspective, we’d be much better off if they would figure out a way to seek an appropriate balance here,” Corker said of the Trump administration.
Corker would not elaborate on what kind of punishment would satisfy Congress enough to drop the war powers resolution.
“Let us sort of work it for a few days,” Corker said. “I think they have a pretty good sense of what they could do.”
In the meantime, Corker is drafting a substitute amendment to the war powers measure that doesn’t go as far as withdrawing U.S. support from the Yemen conflict, which the Trump administration and many GOP lawmakers oppose because it would advantage Iran.
Corker declined to provide the details of his amendment.
“There are still a few days before this happens,” Corker said. “Hopefully there is a way the administration themselves could deal with this in a manner where people could now say this has been dealt with and there is no need for us to proceed to this legislation.”
