After the death of “Washington Post” columnist Jamal Khashoggi.
Kevin Lamarque/Reuters
The House voted to end U.S. military assistance to Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen in a 248-177 vote on Wednesday, The New York Times reports. Eighteen Republicans reportedly voted with Democrats to “curtail presidential war powers” after Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi was killed in Istanbul’s Saudi Arabian consulate late last year. The Senate will now have to respond, and Senate aides told the newspaper they were “optimistic” a resolution would pass. The previous Senate also passed a very similar resolution last year in a 56 to 41 vote. Over the weekend, the White House reportedly threatened to block such a resolution if it ended up on the president’s desk—claiming that the “the premise of the joint resolution is flawed” because the U.S. offered “limited support to member countries of the Saudi-led coalition” in Yemen. Saudi Arabia has denied having anything to do with Khashoggi’s death, but U.S. intelligence reportedly concluded Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the October 2018 murder.
