SENSE OF CONGRESS ON REPORT ON MURDER OF JAMAL KHASHOGGI.

SEC. 625. SENSE OF CONGRESS ON REPORT ON MURDER OF JAMAL KHASHOGGI. (a) Findings.—Congress finds the following: (1) There is a strong bipartisan conviction, shared widely throughout the legislative and executive branches of the United States Government and elsewhere, that ensuring full accountability for the brutal murder on October 2, 2018, of Jamal Khashoggi, a former Washington Post columnist and resident of the United States, is in the public interest and also the national interest of the United States. (2) Section 5714 of the Damon Paul Nelson and Matthew Young Pollard Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Years 2018, 2019, and 2020 (division E of Public Law 116-92; 133 Stat. 2173) required the Director of National Intelligence to submit to Congress a written report in “unclassified form” that includes “identification of those who carried out, participated in, ordered, or were otherwise complicit in or responsible for the death of Jamal Khashoggi.”. (3) Section 1277 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2020 (Public Law 116-92; 133 Stat. 1701) likewise obligated the Director to submit to the Committee on Foreign Affairs and the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence of the House of Representatives and the Committee on Foreign Relations and the Select Committee on Intelligence of the Senate a written report on the assessment of the intelligence community regarding Mr. Khashoggi’s brutal murder. (4) Such section 1277 specifically called, among other things, for a determination and presentation of evidence with respect to the advance knowledge and role of any current or former official of the Government of Saudi Arabia or any current or former senior Saudi political figure over the directing, ordering, or tampering of evidence in relation to Mr. Khashoggi’s murder. (5) Such section 1277 also required the Director to submit a list of foreign persons whom the Director has high confidence were responsible for, complicit in, or otherwise knowingly and materially assisted the murder, or impeded its impartial investigation, or who ordered or otherwise directed an act or acts contributing to or causing the murder. (6) Contrary to the unambiguous and lawful command of Congress under such sections 5714 and 1277, the Director did not produce any unclassified report as required by either such section, and instead, on February 20, 2020, the Director submitted to such committees a classified report, which the Director referred to as an “annex”. (7) The evident belief of the Director that no unclassified information can be produced in accordance with the directives of Congress is dubious, in light of the extensive body of credible, unclassified reporting available regarding the murder of Mr. Khashoggi, and the roles and culpability of officials at the highest levels of the Government of Saudi Arabia. (b) Sense of Congress.—It is the sense of Congress that the Director of National Intelligence should reasonably have been able to produce an unclassified report pursuant to section 5714 of the Damon Paul Nelson and Matthew Young Pollard Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Years 2018, 2019, and 2020 and section 1277 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2020 that did not alter or obscure, in any way, the intelligence community’s core determinations, its presentation of evidence, or identification of relevant persons, as required, without putting sources and methods at risk.