The Biden administration will release an intelligence report as early as Thursday that concludes that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman approved the 2018 killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, three U.S. officials familiar with the matter said.
The intelligence assessment, based largely on work by the CIA, is not new; NBC News was among the organizations that confirmed it in 2018.
But its public release will mark a significant new chapter in the U.S.-Saudi relationship and a clear break by President Joe Biden with former President Donald Trump's policy of equivocating about the Saudi state's role in a brutal murder that was widely condemned by members of Congress, journalists and a U.N. investigator.