Khashoggi's widow and Democrats demand release of call transcript with
Trump and Saudi crown prince
[November 22, 2025]
By STEPHEN GROVES and LISA MASCARO
WASHINGTON (AP) — The widow of Washington Post journalist Jamal
Khashoggi called Friday for the release of the transcript of a 2019
phone call that President Donald Trump had with Mohammed bin Salman,
joining Democratic lawmakers who are raising questions about whether
Trump personally benefitted from his embrace of the Saudi crown prince.
Hanan Elatr Khashoggi appeared on Capitol Hill on Friday morning on the
heels of Trump's dismissal of U.S. intelligence findings that Prince
Mohammed most likely had culpability in the October 2018 slaying of her
husband. Trump also lavished the Saudi ruler this week with some of
Washington's highest honors for a foreign dignitary, deepening the
business and military relationship between the two nations.
Saudi intelligence officials and a forensic doctor killed and
dismembered Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul in 2018.
“There is no justification to kidnap him, torture him, to kill him and
to cut him to pieces,” Hanan Elatr Khashoggi said Friday during an
emotional news conference. “This is a terrorist act.”
The demand in Congress for the Trump administration to release the call
transcripts is being led Rep. Eugene Vindman, a freshman Democrat from
Virginia who was deputy legal adviser to the National Security Council
during Trump’s first term.
Vindman, who has reviewed the transcript of the phone call with Prince
Mohammed, declined to go into specifics of the classified document
Friday, but said it used “the terminology of quid pro quo, the ensuing
benefits that the president reaped.”
The Democratic lawmakers also pointed out that Trump’s family has
extensive business dealings in Saudi Arabia that at times have
benefitted from the prince's direct involvement.
The situation carries echoes of Trump’s first impeachment over his July
2019 call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in which he asked the new Ukraine
president to do him a “favor” in investigating his presidential rival,
Joe Biden. At the time, Trump ended up releasing a transcript of the
call with Zelenskyy in which he also said he would withhold $400 million
in military aid.
Vindman, then at the security council, also reviewed that call. He said
that out of all the calls he reviewed in his job, the calls with
Zelenskyy and Prince Mohammed stood out as the most concerning. He
called the transcript of the call with the Saudi ruler “shocking.”
"The Kashoggi family and the American people deserve to know what was
said on that call," he added.
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From left, Rep. Eugene Vindman, D-Va., Hanan El-Atr Khashoggi, the
widow of slain journalist Jamal Khashoggi, and Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md.,
hold a news conference as they call on President Donald Trump to
release the transcript of a call he had with Saudi Crown Prince
Mohammed bin Salman after Khashoggi's killing, at the Capitol in
Washington, Friday, Nov. 21, 2025. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
During Prince Mohammed's state visit this week, Hanan Elatr
Khashoggi has tried to serve as a reminder of her late husband's
brutal killing. Originally from Egypt, Khashoggi received political
asylum in the U.S. in 2023 and currently lives in Virginia. She cast
the demand for the transcript as a continuation of his work standing
up for human rights and criticizing Saudi rulers.
“I need to know what is the truth in this conversation,” she said.
When asked if the White House would release the transcript, White
House communications director Steven Cheung in a statement called
Vindman "a bitter back-bencher who nobody takes seriously. He is a
serial liar and was part of the hoax relating to the perfect Ukraine
call, in which the Ukrainian president said so himself.”
Vindman's twin brother, then-Army officer, Lt. Col. Alex Vindman,
also worked at the National Security Council at the time, and had a
prominent role in Trump’s 2019 impeachment.
Eugene Vindman was not as public a figure in that impeachment trial
as his brother was. But after the Senate voted to acquit Trump of
the House impeachment charges, the White House reassigned Alex
Vindman from the council and pushed Eugene Vindman out, too.
Eugene Vindman ran for office representing northern Virginia last
year.
It is unlikely that the Trump administration would voluntarily
release the 2019 call transcript with Prince Mohammed. Democratic
lawmakers, who are in the minority, also have little power to force
its release. They also stayed away from speculating whether Trump's
relationship with Prince Mohammed would be grounds for another
impeachment inquiry if they retake the House next year.
Still, they said the interaction was emblematic of the direction
that Trump is leading the country.
“We are being drawn in the direction of authoritarian monarchy, in
tyranny right now,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat.
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