Saudi Press Agency
- South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham was pictured meeting Saudi Arabia's Mohammed bin Salman.
- The US senator had pledged to isolate the Saudi leader over the killing of Jamal Khashoggi.
- But he appears to have had a change of heart.
Sen. Lindsey Graham held a meeting with Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince this week, a leader he had previously described as an "unhinged" murderer following the assassination of dissident Jamal Khashoggi.
In a tweet Tuesday, Graham said he had just had a "very productive, candid meeting with the Saudi Crown Prince and his senior leadership team.
"The opportunity to enhance the U.S.-Saudi relationship is real and the reforms going on in Saudi Arabia are equally real," he added.
—Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) April 11, 2023
The government-linked Saudi Press Agency (SPA) released pictures of the meeting, in which the South Carolina senator and the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman are pictured laughing, flanked by top US and Saudi officials.
In his tweets, Graham said he thanked the crown prince for a recent multi-billion dollar Saudi deal for Boeing jets, which are manufactured in South Carolina.
"Investments like this are game changers," said Graham.
—SPAENG (@Spa_Eng) April 11, 2023
Neither Graham nor the SPA mentioned that the 2018 murder of Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist and critic of the Saudi royal family, had been among the issues discussed.
The murder of Khashoggi, who was killed and dismembered in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, prompted an international outcry.
Graham was among the most prominent figures in the US calling for the crown prince to be punished over the killing, which the CIA believes he personally ordered. Saudi Arabia denies he had any involvement.
"This guy has got to go," Graham said in a 2018 Fox News interview, and said the crown prince had Khashoggi "murdered."
"Saudi Arabia, if you're listening, there are a lot of good people you can choose," Graham said. "But MBS [Mohammed bin Salman] has tainted your country and tainted yourself."
Graham, who had previously supported closer US-Saudi ties, in the same interview said he would not be "going back to Saudi Arabia as long as this guy is in charge."
"If he is going to be the face of Saudi Arabia going forward, I think the kingdom will have a hard time on the world stage," Graham told NBC in a separate interview.
"They are an important ally, but when it comes to the crown prince, he is irrational, he is unhinged, and I think he has done a lot of damage to the relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia and I have no intention of working with him ever again."
Graham is not the first US politician to make a dramatic u-turn in his attitude towards the Saudi leader.
President Joe Biden had pledged to make the crown prince a "pariah" while seeking election in 2020, but as president has instead chosen to maintain an alliance.