Donald Trump has no problem protecting tyrants like the Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Vladimir Putin
This echo editorial includes an follow up article to help explain how Trump is in violation of the Magnitsky Act
Senator James Risch of Idaho can hold Donald Trump accountable for Saudi misdeeds
It has been a month since the Trump administration flouted a legal requirement to report to the Senate on the responsibility of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, for the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Rather than comply with the law, on March 4 it dispatched midlevel officials from the State and Treasury departments to obfuscate before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. They provided no new information about the killing and would not say when or whether the White House would issue a finding on the crown prince. Reactions from senators, including Republicans, were scathing: “Worthless,” was the summary of Sen. Lindsey O. Graham, R-S.C.
The bipartisan outrage is justified. In his zeal to cover for Mohammed bin Salman, who the CIA concluded ordered Khashoggi’s murder, Donald Trump is defying Congress’ authority under the Global Magnitsky Act*, which provides for U.S. action in cases of gross human rights abuses. The law allows legislators to require a finding by the president in specific cases; that provision was invoked last year by then-Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker, R-Tenn., and ranking Democrat Robert Menendez (N.J.), who asked for a determination of Mohammed bin Salman’s responsibility. The Senate’s view is already clear: It unanimously approved a resolution in December holding the crown prince responsible.
Now the question is whether the Senate will act to uphold its authority under the law and prevent the Saudi ruler from escaping accountability for the gruesome murder and dismemberment of a journalist who was a Virginia resident and a contributor to the Post. Not only the question of justice for Khashoggi is at issue: The crime is part of a pattern of reckless and destructive behavior by Mohammed bin Salman that ranges from the bombing of civilians in Yemen to the imprisonment and torture of a number of Saudi female activists, as well as a U.S. citizen.
Several pieces of legislation addressing the Yemen war or the Khashoggi case are pending in the Senate and House.
But the broadest and most useful vehicle may be a bill sponsored by Mr. Menendez and six other senators, including Mr. Graham and two other Republicans. It would mandate sanctions on any Saudi official or member of the royal family who was “responsible for, or complicit in . . . acts contributing to or causing the death of Jamal Khashoggi,” a catchall from which the crown prince could not be easily excluded. It would also address the Yemen war by restricting sales of U.S. weapons, banning refueling of Saudi planes and imposing sanctions on those who interfere with the delivery of humanitarian aid.
There appears to be broad bipartisan support for congressional action on Saudi Arabia. Mr. Menendez points out that based on its sponsorship alone, his measure could win the approval of the Foreign Relations Committee if its new chairman, Sen. James E. Risch, R-Idaho, allows a vote. At a hearing Wednesday, Mr. Risch expressed unease at Saudi human rights violations, saying, “We cannot look the other way.” If he means that, he should schedule action on the Saudi Arabia Accountability and Yemen bill.
* Why You Keep Hearing the Name Magnitsky in the News. It pops up in all sorts of places. The U.S. law known as the Magnitsky Act has been wielded against Russian officials and the Myanmar military, proposed as a tool to punish China and Saudi Arabia and invoked in the ongoing investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. There’s quite a story behind it as well.
The law infuriated people in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s circle and prompted Russia to retaliate by halting most adoptions of Russian children by American families. At a joint July press conference with U.S. President Donald Trump in Helsinki, Putin took direct aim at William Browder, Hermitage Capital’s American-born founder and a driving force behind the sanctions push that led to the law. Putin suggested that Browder and his partners in a separate company illegally siphoned hundreds of millions of dollars out of Russia -- and, for good measure, that he funneled that moneyinto the campaign of Trump’s opponent in the 2016 presidential race, Hillary Clinton. (A court in Moscow last year sentenced Browder, who lives in the U.K., to nine years in prison for deliberate bankruptcy and tax evasion.) Browder called Putin’s allegations "so ludicrous and untrue that it falls into delusion." He added, "Since 2012, Putin has made it perhaps his largest foreign policy priority to have the Magnitsky Act repealed. But none of his efforts have worked."
It’s a law signed in 2012 by President Barack Obama that authorizes some of the sanctions the U.S. has imposed on Russian companies and individuals. It’s named for Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian tax lawyer who, while working for the international investment company Hermitage Capital Management in 2008, identified what he called a Kremlin-connected scam to steal a $230 million tax rebate that Hermitage had paid to the Russian government in 2006. He was arrested, held without trial and died in a Moscow prison in 2009. The U.S. said he was beaten to death. The Magnitsky Act was written to punish "persons responsible for the detention, abuse and death" of Magnitsky by refusing them entry into the U.S. and freezing any of their assets in the U.S.
A group of U.S. senators has urged Donald Trump to consider using the Global Magnitsky Act to sanction high-ranking Saudi Arabian officials over the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a prominent Saudi journalist who had been critical of the Saudi government. (The global version of the law gives the president 120 days to respond to such requests.) Earlier, two U.S. senators asked the White House to use the same law to freeze the travel and assets of Chinese officials over the alleged detention, mistreatment and forced "re-education" of ethnic Muslim Uighurs in the far-western region of Xinjiang.
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