Secrecy in nuclear talks with Saudi angers US lawmakers

With no solid prospects in sight, the administration has shown US companies the green light for that would enable the monarchy to have nukes.

Congressmen specifically want to know whether or not the approval was issued after dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi was murdered at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, the Hill reported Sunday.

“First we want the information from [the Department of Energy], and we’re demanding it. We should get it,” said New Jersey Democratic Senator Bob Menendez, the ranking member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “And I think it’s critical to know exactly how this happened, when it happened and particularly were you doing this after Khashoggi?”

In the wake of Khashoggi’s murder, the Congress has slowly engaged in a process allegedly to end US support for the Saudi in the war on impoverished Yemen, where a humanitarian crisis is underway.

US Congress sent Trump a resolution for that purpose last week, although President Donald Trump is expected to veto it.

The Oversight and Reform Committee announced in February that it was launching a probe to “determine whether the actions being pursued by the Trump administration are in the national security interests of the United States or, rather, serve those who stand to gain financially as a result of this potential change in U.S. foreign policy.”

Trump has thrown his support behind the monarchy and particularly Mohammed bin Salman, who reportedly ordered the assassination of the former Washington Post columnist at the Saudi consulate in Turkey last October.