A year has passed since Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi journalist and contributor to The Washington Post and Virginia resident, entered the Saudi Arabian Consulate in Istanbul to secure a document for his approaching marriage, only to be slain and cut to pieces, all recorded in sickening detail by Turkish secret services. Though the evidence is strong that he was killed with at least the knowledge of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto ruler of the kingdom, in order to silence a sharp critic, the prince remains in the good graces of President Trump.

Mr. Khashoggi’s dismembered body, taken from the consulate in suitcases, has never been found. The trial of 11 men charged in Saudi Arabia with the killing has been slow, secretive and utterly lacking in credibility. Saud al-Qahtani, the prince’s former top aide and the alleged architect of the murder, has not been charged and has vanished. Prince Mohammed finally took “full responsibility as a leader in Saudi Arabia” for the killing , in a recent interview on CBS News’s “60 Minutes” — but only as a “buck stops here” gesture, still denying any advance knowledge or involvement.

Even after the C.I.A., a United Nations investigation, Turkish prosecutors and the United States Congress pointed fingers at Prince Mohammed, Mr. Trump ignored them all to sustain the illusion that safeguarding his “friendship” with the prince was critical to arms sales, confronting Iran, securing oil supplies and producing a Middle East peace plan that the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, keeps promising to unveil . On meeting the prince at the Group of 20 meeting in Osaka, Japan, Mr. Trump was effusive in his praise. “It’s an honor to be with the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, a friend of mine, a man who has really done things in the last five years in terms of opening up Saudi Arabia,” the president said. “You’ve done, really, a spectacular job.”

Prince Mohammed has made some progress on his social reforms. Women can now drive, receive equal treatment in the workplace and travel without the express permission of a male relative. That these are significant changes testifies to how repressive the kingdom has been and remains. Some women who had worked to earn these rights remain in jail or await trial for their activism.