By STEPHEN GROVES and LISA MASCARO, Related Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — The widow of Washington Put up journalist Jamal Khashoggi referred to as Friday for the discharge of the transcript of a 2019 cellphone name that President Donald Trump had with Mohammed bin Salman, becoming a member of Democratic lawmakers who’re elevating questions on whether or not Trump personally benefitted from his embrace of the Saudi crown prince.
Hanan Elatr Khashoggi appeared on Capitol Hill on Friday morning on the heels of Trump’s dismissal of U.S. intelligence findings that Prince Mohammed more than likely had culpability within the October 2018 slaying of her husband. Trump additionally lavished the Saudi ruler this week with a few of Washington’s highest honors for a international dignitary, deepening the enterprise and navy relationship between the 2 nations.
Saudi intelligence officers and a forensic physician killed and dismembered Jamal Khashoggi on the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul in 2018.
FILE – Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi speaks throughout a press convention in Manama, Bahrain on Dec. 15, 2014. (AP Picture/Hasan Jamali, File)
The demand in Congress for the Trump administration to launch the decision transcripts is being led Rep. Eugene Vindman, a freshman Democrat from Virginia who was deputy authorized adviser to the Nationwide Safety Council throughout Trump’s first time period.
Vindman, who has reviewed the transcript of the cellphone name with Prince Mohammed, declined to enter specifics of the labeled doc Friday, however mentioned it used “the terminology of quid pro quo, the ensuing benefits that the president reaped.”
The Democratic lawmakers additionally identified that Trump’s household has intensive enterprise dealings in Saudi Arabia that at occasions have benefitted from the prince’s direct involvement.
The state of affairs carries echoes of Trump’s first impeachment over his July 2019 name with Volodymyr Zelenskyy, through which he requested the brand new Ukraine president to do him a “favor” in investigating his presidential rival, Joe Biden. On the time, Trump ended up releasing a transcript of the decision with Zelenskyy through which he additionally mentioned he would withhold $400 million in navy support.
Vindman, then on the safety council, additionally reviewed that decision. He mentioned that out of all of the calls he reviewed in his job, the calls with Zelenskyy and Prince Mohammed stood out as probably the most regarding. He referred to as the transcript of the decision with the Saudi ruler “shocking.”
“The Kashoggi family and the American people deserve to know what was said on that call,” he added.
Throughout Prince Mohammed’s state go to this week, Hanan Elatr Khashoggi has tried to function a reminder of her late husband’s brutal killing. Initially from Egypt, Khashoggi obtained political asylum within the U.S. in 2023 and presently lives in Virginia. She forged the demand for the transcript as a continuation of his work standing up for human rights and criticizing Saudi rulers.
“I need to know what is the truth in this conversation,” she mentioned.
When requested if the White Home would launch the transcript, White Home communications director Steven Cheung in a press release referred to as Vindman “a bitter back-bencher who nobody takes seriously. He is a serial liar and was part of the hoax relating to the perfect Ukraine call, in which the Ukrainian president said so himself.”
Vindman’s twin brother, then-Military officer, Lt. Col. Alex Vindman, additionally labored on the Nationwide Safety Council on the time, and had a distinguished function in Trump’s 2019 impeachment.
Eugene Vindman was not as public a determine in that impeachment trial as his brother was. However after the Senate voted to acquit Trump of the Home impeachment prices, the White Home reassigned Alex Vindman from the council and pushed Eugene Vindman out, too.
Eugene Vindman ran for workplace representing northern Virginia final 12 months.
It’s unlikely that the Trump administration would voluntarily launch the 2019 name transcript with Prince Mohammed. Democratic lawmakers, who’re within the minority, even have little energy to pressure its launch. Additionally they stayed away from speculating whether or not Trump’s relationship with Prince Mohammed can be grounds for one more impeachment inquiry in the event that they retake the Home subsequent 12 months.
Nonetheless, they mentioned the interplay was emblematic of the course that Trump is main the nation.
“We are being drawn in the direction of authoritarian monarchy, in tyranny right now,” mentioned Rep. Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat.
