The 56-41 vote was a rare move by the Senate to limit presidential war powers and sent a potent message of disapproval for a nearly four-year conflict that has killed thousands of civilians and brought famine to Yemen. Moments later, senators unanimously approved a separate resolution to hold Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia personally responsible for the death of the journalist, Jamal Khashoggi.

Together, the votes were an extraordinary break with Trump, who has refused to condemn the prince and dismissed U.S. intelligence agencies’ conclusions that the heir to the Saudi throne directed the grisly killing.

While the House will not take up the measure by the end of the year, the day’s votes signal that Congress will take on Trump’s support of Saudi Arabia when Democrats take control of the House next month.

The action indicated a growing sense of urgency among lawmakers in both parties to punish Saudi Arabia for Khashoggi’s death, and to question a tradition of Washington averting its gaze from the kingdom’s human rights abuses in the interest of preserving a strategically important relationship.

“What the Khashoggi event did, I think, was to focus on the fact that we have been led into this civil war in Yemen, half a world away, into a conflict in which few Americans that I know can articulate what American national security interest is at stake,” said Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah. “And we’ve done so, following the lead of the kingdom of Saudi Arabia.”

The resolution was written by Lee and Sen. Bernie Sanders, independent of Vermont. It was an unusual invocation of the War Powers Act, a 1973 law by which Congress sought at the end of the Vietnam War to reassert its constitutional role in deciding when the United States would go to war.

Sanders called it the first time Congress had used the law to make clear “that the constitutional responsibility for making war rests with the United States Congress, not the White House.”

“Today, we tell the despotic regime in Saudi Arabia that we will not be part of their military adventurism,” he said.

Seven Republican senators joined Democrats to pass the resolution: Lee, Susan Collins of Maine, Steve Daines of Montana, Jeff Flake of Arizona, Jerry Moran of Kansas, Rand Paul of Kentucky and Todd Young of Indiana.

With both votes, senators diverged sharply from Trump, who has maintained steadfast support for Saudi Arabia and Crown Prince Mohammed, even though the CIA has concluded that he ordered the assassination of Khashoggi inside its consulate in Istanbul in October.

“Maybe he did and maybe he didn’t!” Trump wrote of whether the crown prince had knowledge of the killing in an extraordinary statement that the president released last month, in which he argued that punishing Saudi Arabia for Khashoggi’s death would risk billions of dollars of U.S. arms sales to the kingdom.

Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., who heads the Foreign Relations Committee and sponsored the measure condemning the crown prince, said Thursday that it was vital that the Senate “is speaking with one voice” to hold him accountable.

“Unanimously, the United States Senate has said that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is responsible for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi,” Corker said. “That is a strong statement. I think it speaks to the values that we hold dear.”

Senators in both parties described the twin measures as a direct response to the refusal by Trump and his administration to hold Saudi Arabia to account for Khashoggi’s death — and a way to counter the president’s assertion that the money to be made from arms sales to the kingdom was enough to justify turning a blind eye to such a deed.

“We cannot sweep under the rug the callous disregard for human life and flagrant violations of international norms the Saudis are showing,” said Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey, the senior Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee.

“A few more weapons purchases cannot buy our silence — it should not buy our silence,” Menendez said. “And if the president will not, Congress must act.”

The votes came only hours after Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo implored members of the House of Representatives during a closed-door briefing to continue the military advising, logistics support and intelligence that have for years been shared with Saudi Arabia.

Some lawmakers emerged from the House meeting frustrated that Pompeo and Mattis had defended the United States’ relationship with the kingdom, which the White House needs to counter growing Iranian influence in the Middle East.

Rep. David Cicilline, D-R.I., said the two top administration officials had warned against jeopardizing the Saudi partnership — given what they described as a continuing, open investigation into whether Crown Prince Mohammed had, in fact, ordered the killing of Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist who had lived in the United States.

“The briefing was a colossal waste of time,” Cicilline told reporters afterward.

Some senior Republicans offered the administration officials more support.

Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the No. 3 Republican in the House, said Pompeo and Mattis had explained details of the investigation into Khashoggi’s death, as well as complexities of the relationship with Saudi Arabia.

“There needs to be action,” Scalise said, without elaborating. “We need to hold everyone accountable.”

Mattis and Pompeo gave a similar briefing to the Senate late last month. But it broke down as Republican and Democratic senators grew irritated with the administration’s defense of Crown Prince Mohammed. By contrast, after CIA Director Gina Haspel briefed senators last week on the case, they emerged saying they were even more convinced of Crown Prince Mohammed’s role.

The measure limiting war powers in Yemen has been under consideration for months, but senators sharpened its language two weeks ago with a procedural vote that signaled their deep frustration over the Trump administration’s refusal to blame Crown Prince Mohammed for Khashoggi’s killing.

“The relationship with the crown prince is so toxic, so tainted, so flawed that I can’t ever see myself doing business with Saudi Arabia in the future unless there is change there,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told reporters Wednesday as debate on the measure began.

But Graham and other senators sought to separate the importance of maintaining a close alliance and partnership with Saudi Arabia from punishing Crown Prince Mohammed.

Before the killing and dismemberment of Khashoggi, most Republicans had supported the military alliance between the United States and Saudi Arabia.

But in the Saudi-led campaign in Yemen, to which the Pentagon has supplied bombs and intelligence, Saudi airstrikes targeting Houthi rebels have also killed thousands of people at weddings, at funerals and on school buses.

In late October, Mattis and Pompeo had called for a cease-fire in Yemen, and on Thursday, talks that were brokered by the United Nations in Sweden appeared to reach an agreement to ease the hostilities.

The agreement calls for an exchange of up to 15,000 prisoners, the creation of a humanitarian corridor into the city of Taiz and, importantly, the withdrawal of troops from Hodeida. That city, on the Red Sea, is a key entry point to Yemen for essential products like food and medicine.

Peace talks are expected to continue in January in an effort to resolve what has become a humanitarian crisis in one of the poorest nations on Earth.

“The agreements today mean a lot, not only for the Yemeni people but for humanity if this can be a starting point for peace and for ending the humanitarian crisis in Yemen,” U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said at the close of the talks Thursday.

Menendez and Graham said Wednesday that they and other senators would introduce legislation early next year to impose even broader penalties against Saudi Arabia, including suspending weapons sales and cementing a ban on U.S. refueling of Saudi coalition aircraft in Yemen.

While Thursday’s moves were largely a symbolic, if stinging, slap at the Trump administration, they previewed what could be a far more consequential debate after Democrats take over the House in 2019.

“If Paul Ryan thinks on his way out the door his last public service gift to humanity is covering up for Saudi Arabia, great, he can make that his legacy,” said Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., referring to the procedural gambit by Ryan, the House speaker, this week to prevent the war powers measure from coming up for a swift a vote.

“But we’re going to be around next year,” Kaine said, “and we’ll figure out ways that there can be consequences for this.”

The New York Times

Julie Hirschfeld Davis and Eric Schmitt © 2018 The New York Times