Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jim Risch (R-Idaho) on Wednesday objected to what he called an "inappropriate" request by Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) to commemorate slain Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a resident of Virginia, during Saud Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's visit to Washington.
Kaine stood up on the Senate floor late Wednesday afternoon to request unanimous consent to pass a Senate joint resolution to commemorate the seventh anniversary of Khashoggi's death.
But Risch objected immediately.
"First of all, this couldn't come at a more inappropriate time," Risch said, alluding to President Trump hosting bin Salman at a star-studded and lavish black-tie dinner at the White House Tuesday evening.
Trump has used the Saudi crown prince's visit to further strengthen ties between the United States and Saudi Arabia after the president agreed earlier this year to sell F-35 fighter jets to the Middle Eastern kingdom and the prince agreed to invest $1 trillion in the United States.
Risch warned that Kaine's resolution was counterproductive to those diplomatic efforts.
"Here is a very large delegation from Saudi Arabia visiting right now to Washington, D.C. They are a long, long-term ally of the United States, going back almost 100 years. We've had a long relationship with them," he said on the floor.
He argued that "nothing" in Kaine's resolution would "achieve accountability for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi more than has already accrued."
Khashoggi, a Washington Post journalist and critic of the Saudi royal family, was murdered and dismembered after he entered the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul in October 2018.
U.S. intelligence agencies concluded in a report that was declassified in 2021 that bin Salman approved Khashoggi's murder. The Treasury Department at the time issued sanctions against Ahmad Hassan Mohammed al Asiri, the former deputy head of Saudi Arabia's General Intelligence Presidency.
Saudi officials claimed in 2018 that bin Salman did not authorize and was not aware of Khashoggi's killing.
Kaine, speaking on the Senate floor, highlighted the findings of the U.S. intelligence agencies and questioned what benefit the nation was getting from rolling out the red carpet for the crown prince in Washington this week.
"Why is the administration willing to move so far to accommodate this regime, this individual that our own intelligence agencies have said is responsible for the murder of a Washington Post journalist who lived in my commonwealth? What is the United States getting from offering MBS all of this?"
Trump scolded a reporter for ABC News Tuesday for asking bin Salman about Khashoggi's death during a question-and-answer session in the Oval Office.
"You don't have to embarrass our guest by asking a question like that," Trump told ABC's Mary Bruce.