To punish Saudi Arabia with the "Khashoggi Ban," Biden mirrored a plan developed under ... - 0 views
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When the Biden administration announced a ban on dozens of Saudis from traveling to the US in response to intelligence that the kingdom's powerful crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, had approved the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, it was rolling out a plan that had been spiked by the Trump administration and brought back to life once President Joe Biden took office.
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Dubbed the "Khashoggi Ban" by the State Department, the measure issued visa restrictions on 76 Saudis and their families.
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The plan had initially been drafted by the Trump administration, which shelved it over fears of alienating the key Middle Eastern ally.
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"The work was done," a senior Trump administration official confirmed, noting that the plan was rejected by "consensus recommendation" after it had been sent up and discussed by the most senior officials in the Trump administration.
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Once Biden was sworn in, new officials appointed to the State Department arrived with "a very similar concept already in mind," a Biden administration official said.
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Ultimately, the list of 76 Saudis on the "Khashoggi Ban," whose names the State Department has said it will not publish, had been sent to Congress in February 2020 as part of a classified report of actions the department was considering under then Secretary Mike Pompeo, an official who has seen the lists told CNN.
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While it's not unusual for an administration, especially early on, to use an idea that had been considered by past White Houses, it is notable that the Biden team would implement a policy that had been discussed at such high levels under Trump
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"It is fairly normal for departments and agencies to float previously considered policies up for review when new administrations come in," said Javed Ali, a longtime national security official who served under both Trump and President Barack Obama
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"Any country that would dare engage in these abhorrent acts should know that their officials -- and their immediate family members -- could be subject to this new policy," a senior State Department official said in a statement. "We expect it will have a deterrent effect the world over."
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When the intelligence report came out on Feb. 26, the Biden administration announced the "Khashoggi Ban," and the new sanctions aimed at the crown prince's protective team and one former senior Saudi intelligence official, Ahmad al-Asiri. But sanctions were never considered for MBS himself, according to administration officials. It was never a "viable option" and would be "too complicated," multiple administration officials said, with the potential to jeopardize US military interests.
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Still unexplained is why on the day the long-awaited report was published, the Office of Director of National Intelligence quietly took it down and replaced it with a second version in which three names were removed.
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One of the three men whose names were removed, Abdulla Mohammed Alhoeriny, is a senior counterterrorism official whose brother is the head of Saudi Arabia's Presidency of State Security. It's not known whether he or the others are among the 76 who've been banned from traveling to the US.