(CNN) A bipartisan group of lawmakers voted Thursday to halt the Trump administration's push to circumvent Congress and expedite $8.1 billion in arms sales to Gulf countries by declaring an emergency.

Trump is expected to veto the package of resolutions of disapproval and Thursday's votes were far short of the two-thirds of the chamber needed to overrule the President. Still the demonstration is a symbolic showing of the opposition -- including from within Trump's own party -- to the administration's relationship to Saudi Arabia, following the killing of Jamal Khashoggi last year.

Speaking on the Senate floor ahead of the vote, Sen. Bob Menendez, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told his fellow lawmakers that passing these resolutions would not only send a strong message to the Trump administration but set an important precedent going forward.

"If the Senate wants to show the world that, even if you are an ally you cannot kill with impunity, this is the moment. It's also the moment to tell the UAE that you can't take our weapons and sell it or give it to others who we consider people on the terrorist list," he said.

"Stand up for the proposition that we won't let any allies, just because they're an ally, kill, with impunity, a journalist—something that we cherish under our Constitution and the Bill of Rights and the freedom of expression under the First Amendment. And stand up for the proposition that we won't let our bombs fall upon innocent civilians and have the moral responsibility which will be a blemish on our history for years to come," Menendez said.

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