Joe Biden believes Mohammed bin Salman ordered Jamal Khashoggi hit

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Thursday said that President Biden, who is visiting Saudi Arabia next month, believes that the country’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, ordered the 2018 operation that killed Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.

Biden will travel to Saudi Arabia in mid-July as he seeks to thaw US-Saudi relations amid record-high gas prices. He has agreed to meet with MBS on that trip despite previously seeking to sideline bin Salman.

Khashoggi’s fiancee this week beseeched Biden to cancel the meeting telling him, “you are dishonoring yourself” and “putting oil over principles” by agreeing to the sitdown.

Jean-Pierre was pressed repeatedly Thursday on the matter at her regular briefing by Washington Post reporter Matt Viser, who cited a US intelligence community report that assessed that the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia ordered the operation.

“The executive summary of this report says ‘we assess that Saudi Arabia’s crown prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the operation’ to capture and kill [Khashoggi],” Viser said.

“And he released the report, right?” Jean-Pierre said, at first side-stepping whether Biden agreed with the finding.

“But does he agree with that assessment?” Viser pressed.

“I’m telling you this is something that the president takes very, very seriously. And he released that report, so clearly he would not release that report if it’s not something he believed in,” Jean-Pierre said.

The press secretary also had contentious exchanges Thursday when pressed by journalists on whether the White House is going to continue to release dates for when Biden tested negative for COVID-19.

Biden, 79, has never tested positive for the coronavirus “that I know,” she said.

“We would be transparent about that,” she told Viser after a series of other inquiries on the matter from first- and second-row briefing room reporters.

Jean-Pierre said that Biden is tested weekly for the virus unless he is deemed to be a “close contact” with an infected person, as defined by CDC guidelines. She said he had not been in close contact with someone known to have the virus.

The coronavirus has continued to sweep through Biden’s inner circle, sickening Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg last week and on Wednesday his chief medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci tested positive.

“The president has a regular testing cadence determined by his doctor. As we’ve said many times, if he were to be a close contact as defined by the CDC, because that’s what we follow, we would update his testing cadence accordingly and share that with all with all of you,” she said.

But Peter Alexander of NBC pressed Jean-Pierre on whether public notice of the president testing negative was becoming rarer.

“I’m just confused because in the past guys always told us the date of the most recent test. So why can’t you tell us?” Alexander said, adding during a back-and-forth with the press secretary, “Why has that changed? Because in the past they always told us.”

Jean-Pierre ultimately said, “He gets tested once a week. I don’t have the date in front of front of me at this time” and concluded by repeating that if Biden were to be in close contact with someone, the frequency of testing would change.