avoided, officials said.

For decades, Saudi Arabia's vast oil wealth and its strategic influence in the Middle East have ensured similar deference from the State and Defense departments and the National Security Council staff. The bilateral relationship became strained after the 9/11 attacks, in which 15 of 19 hijackers were Saudi members of al-Qaida, and during the American occupation of Iraq. But the Obama administration made a concerted effort to overcome those tensions, and the Trump administration has gone further, refusing to hold the Saudi leadership accountable even after the CIA concluded that the powerful crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, had likely ordered the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi columnist for The Washington Post.

Saudi Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Reuters/Bandar Algaloud/Courtesy of Saudi Royal Court Since lateDecember, Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, has pressed the departments of State, Justice, and Homeland Security for information on the Saudi government's actions in helping to repatriate Saudi students who faced criminal charges here. Wyden voiced particular outrage about the case of Fallon Smart, a 15-year-old Portland girl who was struck and killed by the speeding car of a Saudi college student in 2016.

That student, Abdulrahman Sameer Noorah, was freed from a Portland jail after the Saudi consulate in Los Angeles gave him $100,000 to cover his $1 million bail. He surrendered his passport and driver's license to Homeland Security officials. But on a Saturday afternoon in June 2017, two weeks before Noorah was to go on trial for manslaughter, a large, black SUV picked him up