WASHINGTON—Decrying the Senate’s resolution blaming the crown prince for the brutal torture and murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi as “a cruel, inhumane, and unprecedented interference into a sovereign kingdom’s internal affairs,” the Trump administration launched a human rights investigation Monday into the Senate’s harsh treatment of Saudi ruler Mohammad bin Salman. “We are looking into the deeply troubling accusations that the United States Senate has chosen to willfully and knowingly place fault for the murder of a dissident journalist on a Saudi crown prince,” said the president, claiming that no despot should be made to endure such inhumane treatment as the loss of military funding for an ongoing war in Yemen that has left millions homeless and starving, no matter whose dismemberment they may have ordered. “Facing criticism like this on the international stage is, for a powerful leader such as bin Salman, basically torture, and we take this kind of mistreatment very seriously. This is not how Americans treat authoritarian regimes that purchase our weapons. Without billions of dollars in military aid, how is the Saudi regime supposed to maintain its basic standard of living?” The Trump administration is expected to charge all American senators with crimes against humanity for their role in holding the Saudi regime responsible for its actions.

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