Iran Press/America: Some US lawmakers from Republican party said on Sunday that Congress must take additional action regarding the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, as senior Democrats in Congress accused Donald Trump of lying about CIA's Jamal Khashoggi report, Iran Press reported.
"I disagree with US president's assessment. It's inconsistent with the intelligence I've seen, which implicates the crown prince," Republican Senator Mike Lee said on NBC's Meet the Press.
Senator Lee cited that the Khashoggi killing as another reason why he has pushed against helping Saudi Arabia's war effort in Yemen.
US President Donald Trump said last week that Washington stands with Riyadh in the wake of the slaying of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
US president acknowledged Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman "could very well" have known about Khashoggi's murder.
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US House of Representatives plan to further examine the intelligence community's assessment of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi's killing and the overall financial ties between the US President Donald Trump and Saudi Arabia.
Democratic US Representative Adam Schiff, who is in line to become chairman of the House Intelligence Committee when Democrats regain control of the chamber in January, has promised investigations on the Khashoggi case as well as whether Trump's personal financial interests are dictating his Saudi policy.
Adam Schiff said after being briefed on the slaying of Jamal Khashoggi that President Donald Trump has not been telling the truth about the journalist's death.
"I have been briefed by the CIA. And while I cannot discuss the contents of the briefing in any way, I can say that I think the US President is being dishonest with the American people," Schiff said Sunday on CNN's State of the Union.
Jamal Khashoggi once a close aid of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and later active critic and dissident of al-Saud regime entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on 2 October, but he never came out of that building alive.
"If there are indicators that the prince was involved in this murder then we need to absolutely consider further action," Republican Senator Joni Ernst said on CNN.
Also senator Ben Sasse, a frequent Trump critic, criticized Trump's stance on Khashoggi's killing as weak.
"Making the realist case is a different thing than being so weak that we failed to tell the truth," Sasse said on Fox News Sunday.
"Saudi Crown Prince contributed to murdering somebody abroad and it is not strength to sort of mumble past that. Strength is telling the truth even when it's hard," he added.
Other Republican senators, including Lindsey Graham, Rand Paul and Bob Corker, have been unsparing in their assessments of Saudi Arabia's involvement in Khashoggi's killing.
"I never thought I’d see a day that White House would moonlight as a public relations firm for the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia," Corker, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, wrote on Twitter after Trump's comments on Tuesday.
After 18 days of silence and rejecting claims that Khashoggi was killed, the Saudi government finally bowed down to international pressure on October 20th and claimed the prominent journalist was killed in a fist-fight inside Istanbul consulate.
The willingness to defend the crown prince and Saudi Arabia despite the CIA's assessment that Bin Salman ordered Khashoggi's killing raised questions about Trump's motives and, in particular, his direct ties to the country.
US President Donald Trump denied having any personal financial interest in Saudi Arabia as his relationship with the country comes under scrutiny amid the murder Jamal Khashoggi. But his businesses have made millions from the Saudi government, and the Saudi crown prince gave his New York City hotel a huge boost. 101/201
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