By Eric Schmitt and Nicholas Fandos
WASHINGTON — A bipartisan group of senior senators said on Tuesday that a classified briefing by the C.I.A. director had only solidified their belief that Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, ordered the killing of the Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi.
Prince Mohammed “is a wrecking ball,” Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, told reporters after an hourlong briefing by the C.I.A. director, Gina Haspel. “I think he’s complicit in the murder of Mr. Khashoggi to the highest level possible.”
Senator Richard C. Shelby, Republican of Alabama and the Appropriations Committee chairman, echoed that “all evidence points to that, that all this leads back to the crown prince.”
“This is conduct that none of us in America would approve of in any way,” Mr. Shelby said.
