Senior Advisor to the President Jared Kushner's ties to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman have come under scrutiny in the wake of Khashoggi’s killing. | Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images Foreign Policy Kushner meets with Saudi crown prince for first time since Khashoggi killing

A U.S. delegation that included Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and White House adviser, met Tuesday with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, their first known face-to-face meeting since the Saudi government's murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

According to the White House, Kushner met with the crown prince and Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud to build on previous conversations about increasing cooperation between the United States and Saudi Arabia, as well as the Trump administration’s hopes to broker peace between Israelis and Palestinians. The State Department referred to the White House an inquiry about whether Khashoggi was discussed at the meeting. Multiple White House officials did not respond.


The encounter, part of Kushner’s seven-day tour through the Middle East, comes weeks after the Trump administration reserved the right to decline lawmakers’ demands that the White House issue a report to Congress determining who is responsible for the murder of Khashoggi. The move caused an uproar among legislators on both sides of the aisle, some of whom claimed the president’s actions amounted to a cover-up on behalf of the Saudi government and a violation of the law.

Khashoggi was murdered last fall inside Saudi Arabia's Consulate in Istanbul, a killing that the U.S. intelligence community has concluded was ordered by the Saudi government. Saudi officials, after initially insisting that Khashoggi had left the consulate unharmed through a back door, have said that the journalist was killed as part of an interrogation gone wrong.

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Kushner had cultivated a relationship with the crown prince, who, like the president's son-in-law, is in his 30s. These ties to bin Salman have come under scrutiny in the wake of Khashoggi’s killing amid tensions over whether the crown prince, who serves as the de facto leader of Saudi Arabia, ordered the death of the journalist.

Special Representative for International Negotiations Jason Greenblatt and U.S. Special Representative for Iran Brian Hook accompanied Kushner to the meeting, according to the White House. The two nations' delegations also discussed “ways to improve the condition of the entire region through economic investment," the White House said.

Andrew Restuccia contributed to this report.