Senate Votes Again to End Aid to Saudi War in Yemen
Senate to Vote Once again to Cease Aid to Saudi State of war in Yemen
WASHINGTON — The Senate volition vote Wed on whether to cutting off American armed services assistance for Saudi Arabia'due south state of war in Yemen, preparing over again to rebuke President Trump for his continued defense of the kingdom after the killing of the dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
The Yemen vote sets up something of a one-two punch for senators hoping to defy the president. The 2nd punch may land Th, when the Senate has the run a risk to give last passage to a resolution overturning the president'south declaration of a national emergency to secure funding for his border wall.
Passage of the measures would prompt the first vetoes of Mr. Trump's presidency.
"The resolution we will vote on in the Senate tomorrow to end U.S. back up for the Saudi-led war in Republic of yemen is enormously important and celebrated," Senator Bernie Sanders, independent of Vermont, said Tuesday in a argument. "This war is both a humanitarian and a strategic disaster, and Congress has the opportunity to terminate it."
Supporters of the Yemen resolution accept faced a long and grueling road to get the legislation onto the president's desk-bound. The Senate — led by the resolution's authors, Mr. Sanders, Mike Lee, Republican of Utah, and Christopher S. Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut — first passed the measure out 56 to 41 in December, only Paul D. Ryan, the speaker at the fourth dimension, refused to take up the resolution.
His successor, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, did accept it up, and the House easily passed it last calendar month. Simply Business firm Democrats inadvertently batty the process past supporting a surprise procedural motion offered by Republicans to declare the sleeping room'south opposition to anti-Semitism. By attaching an unrelated subpoena to the Yemen resolution, the Firm ended its "privileged" status, which would have forced the Senate to rapidly take it upward and send it to Mr. Trump.
Wednesday's measure out is essentially a practise-over and will have to once more articulate the House. While it is expected to laissez passer, information technology may non bask the same level of Republican support that information technology received in December, aides said.
The resolution gives the Senate some other opportunity to condemn a nearly four-year conflict in Yemen that has killed thousands of civilians and inflicted a devastating famine. Information technology besides underscores the simmering anger among senators even in the president'due south party at his administration's tepid response to the killing of Mr. Khashoggi, a Virginia-based columnist for The Washington Post.
After showtime playing down his own intelligence officials' reports that the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, was responsible for the killing, Mr. Trump then blew by a legally mandated deadline that required the White House to report to Congress whether it believed the prince was personally responsible for Mr. Khashoggi'southward death.
The White Business firm sent two aides from the Country and Treasury Departments last week to a closed-door briefing before the Senate Foreign Relations Commission to try to defuse the senators' rising anger. Just senators on the commission, hungry for either a justification for why the White House defied the congressional mandate or information nearly the crown prince's function in the killing, left unimpressed.
"It was a consummate waste matter of fourth dimension," Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of Due south Carolina, told reporters afterward.
Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, said it was fourth dimension for the Senate to act, adding that the chamber "will have to decide whether it'southward going to impose its ain sanctions."
But the Strange Relations Committee, now overseen by Senator Jim Risch of Idaho, a Trump loyalist, has nonetheless to marker upwardly bipartisan legislation. The measure, introduced last month by Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey, the ranking fellow member of the committee, and Mr. Graham, would prohibit certain arms sales to Kingdom of saudi arabia and impose sanctions on individuals supporting the Houthis in Yemen.
"Seeing as the Trump administration has no intention of insisting on full accountability for Mr. Khashoggi'due south murderers, it is fourth dimension for Congress to step in and impose real consequences to fundamentally re-examine our relationship with the kingdom of Saudi Arabia and with the Saudi-led coalition in Republic of yemen," Mr. Menendez said in a statement.
Mr. Risch has pledged that the panel "will non permit" the killing go. But he has likewise suggested that both the sanctions human activity and the Yemen vote would be ineffective.
"Saudi Arabia has engaged in acts that just are merely non adequate. Unfortunately, equally I said, nosotros hear a lot of descriptions nigh the problem, but nosotros don't hear whatsoever answers," he said at a hearing considering the nomination of the ambassador to Saudi Arabia. "There have been some small suggestions that take been made, none of which would resolve the problem."
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/12/us/politics/senate-yemen-vote-saudi-arabia.html
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