Tom Malinowski: “I thank Chairman Engel for his leadership on this issue. I also want to recognize Ranking Member McCaul and all my…”

“I thank Chairman Engel for his leadership on this issue. I also want to recognize Ranking Member McCaul and all my colleagues on the Foreign Affairs Committee for working with me to ensure that we could move forward with this bill in a bipartisan way. All of us agree that our relationship with Saudi Arabia is important, but we equally agree that how the Saudi Government treats its people and the people of other countries is important. {time} 1600 We have known this for a long time, I think, but last year's murder of Jamal Khashoggi by the Saudi Government makes it especially important that we take meaningful action in defense of our interest and our values. When I was campaigning for Congress last year in New Jersey, foreign policy issues did not come up very often, and yet the murder of Jamal Khashoggi somehow broke through the noise. I was asked about it a lot. I think this is because people understand that, while human rights violations in countries like Saudi Arabia are all too common, what happened to Khashoggi was not common. He was not killed, after all, inside Saudi Arabia. He was a resident of the United States. And yet the Saudi Government lured him into one of their embassies on the soil of a NATO country, where they brutally slaughtered him. Many governments around the world abuse their people. Very few governments reach out beyond their borders to kidnap or kill people living in other countries. Russia has done it; Iran has reportedly done it.…”