Top Biden administration officials this week hosted Saudi Arabia’s Prince Khalid bin Salman, brother to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Saudi A

High-level Saudi visit follows multimillion-dollar foreign influence operation

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2021-07-09 20:00:03

Top Biden administration officials this week hosted Saudi Arabia’s Prince Khalid bin Salman, brother to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Saudi Arabia’s current deputy defense minister. Prince Khalid bin Salman was the kingdom’s ambassador to the U.S. when Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi was murdered in Turkey on the orders of the crown prince in 2018. 

The visit, which the Biden administration did not publicly disclose in advance, comes on the heels of additional revelations about Khashoggi’s murder and follows millions of dollars the Saudi government has spent in foreign influence and lobbying targeting the U.S. 

President Joe Biden faced criticism over his administration’s decision to not directly sanction the Saudi crown prince for Khashoggi’s killing after campaigning in 2020 on making the Saudi prince a “pariah” for that death and other alleged human rights abuses.

Prince Khalid bin Salman met with Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Colin Kahl, according to a readout of the meeting. And Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, a former board member of defense industry giant Raytheon, tweeted that he also “enjoyed seeing” the crown prince’s brother.

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