US President Donald Trump seemed prepared to accept Saudi Arabia's explanation that 60-year-old journalist Jamal Khashoggi became involved in a fist fight in the Saudi embassy in Istanbul and was accidentally killed.
However, senators and representatives from Congress, including from the president's own party, are greeting the story with incredulity.
With midterm congressional elections coming up, members of Congress have begun clamouring for the US to respond and are claiming that they are willing to act, if the president is not.
Al Jazeera’s Patty Culhane reports.
