Representative Eugene Vindman, Democrat of Virginia, called on Friday for the declassification of what he described as a “highly disturbing” 2019 phone call between President Trump and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia after the murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
At a news conference on Capitol Hill with Mr. Khashoggi’s widow, Mr. Vindman said that the transcript, which he reviewed as part of his duties serving on the National Security Council during Mr. Trump’s first term, “would shock people if they knew what was said.”
He said it was one of two disturbing phone calls he had read during his time in the first Trump administration, the other being the 2019 call with Ukraine’s president that became the basis of a whistle-blower complaint by his twin brother, Alexander Vindman, that led to Mr. Trump’s first impeachment.
Mr. Vindman did not divulge what was said in the call between Mr. Trump and Prince Mohammed, who U.S. intelligence concluded approved the killing. But in a letter to Mr. Trump on Thursday, he and dozens of other House Democrats demanded its release. That push is exceedingly unlikely to succeed, and the Virginia Democrat’s announcement appeared calculated mostly to intensify political pressure on the president and keep attention on the killing of Mr. Khashoggi.
Still, in an interview, Mr. Vindman said he had been moved to speak out after Mr. Trump welcomed Prince Mohammed to the White House this week, saying the president “tried to completely rewrite history” about the Saudi leader’s role in the murder of Mr. Khashoggi, a Washington Post journalist.
During the meeting, held in the Oval Office on Tuesday, as a reporter attempted to ask the crown prince about his involvement in the brutal slaying of Mr. Khashoggi, Mr. Trump interjected to say “things happen,” and asserting that Prince Mohammed “knew nothing about it.”
“You’re mentioning somebody that was extremely controversial,” Mr. Trump said, referring to Mr. Khashoggi. “A lot of people didn’t like that gentleman that you’re talking about. Whether you like him, or didn’t like him, things happen. But he knew nothing about it, and we can leave it at that.”
Mr. Vindman took issue with the president’s characterization saying that “U.S. intelligence assessed that M.B.S. ordered the capture and kill,” referring to the C.I.A. conclusion that the crown prince directed the killing.
“There is no justification to kidnap him, torture him, and to kill him and to cut him to pieces. This is a terrorist act,” Hanan Elatr Khashoggi, Mr. Khashoggi’s widow, said during the news conference on Friday, where she also pushed back against the president’s characterization of her late husband.
“I would like to tell Mr. Trump, you’re expressing someone else, not Jamal Khashoggi,” she said. “Jamal Khashoggi was a most stable man. He was a role model to represent the Arab and Muslim, and he accepted everybody regarding your ideology background as well.”
The transcripts of calls between presidents and foreign leaders are controlled by the White House, and usually covered by executive privilege. Veterans of the first Trump administration feel burned over the release of what Mr. Trump came to call his “perfect call” with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine.
Although Mr. Trump has in the past threatened lawmakers with investigations for divulging classified material, members of Congress have wide latitude to speak their minds, protected by the “speech and debate” clause of the Constitution.
Mr. Vindman first made his demand that the call be released on the floor of the House, where his comments have deep constitutional protections. While that clause does not allow lawmakers to release classified material, Mr. Vindman was careful not to talk about specific details of what was in the call, only to share his characterization that it had been shocking.
Mr. Vindman said releasing the transcript would expose what he views as years of conflicts of interest and corruption in Mr. Trump’s dealings with the Saudis. He cited the president’s own comments to the journalist Bob Woodward regarding Prince Mohammed that the president had “saved his ass” following the Khashoggi killing.
“The American people deserve transparency, and the Khashoggi family deserves closure,” Mr. Vindman said in an interview. “The president needs to come clean.”
Asked why he had not demanded the transcript’s release sooner, Mr. Vindman said the political context has fundamentally shifted.
“Up to this point, M.B.S. was a pariah,” he said. “Now the president is trying to whitewash everything. The benefits the Trump family reaped would become much clearer if that transcript were released.”
Julian Barnes contributed reporting.
Robert Jimison covers Congress for The Times, with a focus on defense issues and foreign policy.
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