US Energy Secretary Rick Perry told lawmakers on Thursday he did not know whether any of the approvals he authorised for US companies to sell nuclear power technology to Saudi Arabia were made after the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in October last year.
But the ones that Perry approved for Saudi Arabia, which has been in quiet talks with the Trump administration on a wider nuclear power deal, were not made public. Perry said they contained proprietary information for the companies, the names of which have not been released. Saudi Arabia, which wants to build two reactors initially, has pushed back against US limits on enriching uranium and reprocessing spent fuel, both of which are potential paths to a nuclear weapons programme.
Kaine has accused the Trump administration of complicity in covering up Khashoggi’s murder. A number of lawmakers, both Democrats and Republicans, have been at odds with the Trump administration over its response to Khashoggi’s killing, and a bipartisan group of senators had introduced a bill to impose sanctions on those responsible for his death.