House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Adam B. Schiff, California Democrat, asked the Biden administration Friday to release details about the death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Mr. Schiff wrote Avril Haines, President Biden’s director of national intelligence, requesting that she fulfill her pledge to release an unclassified report on Khashoggi’s killing if confirmed.
Khashoggi, a columnist for The Washington Post, entered a Saudi consulate in Turkey in 2018 and was never seen again. He was reportedly butchered inside, and Saudi Arabia has been widely held to blame.
Congress subsequently passed a law requiring the U.S. Officer of the Director of National Intelligence, or ODNI, to release an unclassified report making details about Khashoggi’s killing available.
That report was never released under former President Trump. Ms. Haines was asked Tuesday if she would reverse course if confirmed to lead the ODNI and she agreed. She was confirmed the following night.
In the letter, released by Mr. Schiff’s office, he specifically asked Ms. Haines to declassify the “classified annex” the ODNI provided to Congress in 2020 about Khashoggi’s killing with redactions as needed.
“The importance of speaking the truth and confronting the powerful over their misconduct is at the heart of bipartisan concerns over the year-long delay in ODNI’s production of an unclassified report to Congress regarding Saudi Arabia’s culpability,” Mr. Schiff wrote to Ms. Haines, who previously served as a national security official under former President Obama.
“I greatly appreciated the commitment you made during your confirmation hearing that you will ensure that the ODNI releases the unclassified report, and hope that you will do so without delay,” he said.
The ODNI received the letter and will respond accordingly, an ODNI official told The Washington Times.
• Andrew Blake can be reached at ablake@washingtontimes.com.
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