resolution to go to the u.s. house of representatives it's notable that today republicans in the house already moved in anticipation of receiving this resolution to make it more difficult for this resolution to pass the authors on the senate side have said that if this congress does not pass the resolution because it's still controlled by republicans in the house they may try again to reintroduce this bill come january with democrats take over the majority in the house and it will be a more friendly politically environment for this resolution but all of that said the final and most challenging test will be on president trump's desk this resolution needs his signature to become law and he has stood steadfastly by saudi arabia in defense of its war in yemen and the killing of jamal khashoggi however this ends with this resolution passing or not it does still deliver a clear message to saudi arabia that there is

a growing support among lawmakers in the u.s. to say that there is a red line that saudi arabia cannot cross when it comes to these human rights abuses. for us in washington d.c. thank you heidi well al jazeera is patchy culhane spoke to democratic u.s. senator chris about holland he says the murder of jamal khashoggi has weakened saudi influence on capitol hill. despite the fact that there's overwhelming evidence as publicly reported the cia concluded that the crown prince was directly implicated in the show you murder despite all that you have the present united states really acting as the mouthpiece for the saudi regime and really becoming complicit in a cover up which is why it's so important that the congress the senate in the house act to make sure that we send a strong signal that this murder was unacceptable what do you think the sense going

to i hope that we will also hold the crown prince directly accountable through the magnitsky act which is a vehicle already in u.s. law to sanction individuals who have committed gross human rights abuses the main point here is that beyond sort of public combination of the crown prince's complicity there has to be some more direct action to hold him personally liable well joel rubin is the president of the washington strategy group and a former deputy assistant secretary of state he joins us live from washington d.c. joel this in some ways appears to be a rebuke of president trying to end his foreign policy stance towards riyadh just how significant is this. what. is significant we have not seen before a vote where the united states senate is essentially saying no more military

support for war overseas and that is something in from this in this technical way that is unique and at this moment in time the war in yemen is growing in its unpopularity and while legislatively this may not end the war because there are many hurdles still and as as was discussed the president can veto what comes to him it is demonstrating clear american public opinion about the need as you no longer support this type of action in yemen so it is a powerful rebuke and john i want to ask you you are a form a senior state department official and i want to ask about the practical implications of this focus i imagine it might put the secretary of state might have been a tough spot quote between us president and what the well that's now seeing from the u.s. senate. it does and these kinds of builds this type of legislation and i also served in the united states senate as the foreign policy adviser so we

would see this kind of interaction back and forth where congressional pressure was enacted not just to specifically in the law but also to change the behavior of the executive branch and what's going to happen now is that when the senate through majority votes to end american participation in the war in yemen they will then be empowered to continue that fight in other a legislative vehicles maybe on appropriations bills to put in riders blocking certain arms sales and bill justify it with a majority opinion of this vote so this is going to change the calculations inside the state department and the defense department in particular in terms of how far they can go and what kind of leash congress is congress is going to have on them and their activities so joe in your mind are we likely to actually see u.s. support for the coalition pull back and if so what might that look like. i think in the near term we're going to see an intense. activity on the diplomatic front

because of an awareness in the executive branch there is a limited amount of time available to continue supporting this war without political repercussion as we're seeing from congress the more that the war continues the more political pressure will rise we'd all like to see the war and if that does then there won't be any more political pressure but if it doesn't and will likely see more intensity so in the near term it will increase the executive branch's actions the president will need to really engage if he doesn't it will only increase the numbers of congress and the members of congress that do take action and one thing worth noting is well the house is going to block this and not really act on it it's a republican house in a few weeks it will be a democratic house and so the democratic house very well may take up this action in january or february and that will only intensify the pressure on the white house

tell reuben and washington d.c. thanks for your time tell. plenty more ahead on the news allen including the u.s. once this chinese executive extradited from canada but there are concerns some in washington are politicizing the case. i'm curious my view also in the philippines a country roughly with the world's most congested jails. in sports a find out of team wellington could pull off a surprise win in their first ever appearance at the club world cup. the man once known as donald trump's fix is going to prison for three is michael cohen who once said he'd take a bullet to the trunk gaited guilty to lying to congress and paying off two women who allegedly had affairs with trump christensen he reports from new york.

michael cohen arrived with his family and nearly broke down in tears when inside the court he apologized for the pain he caused them and for lying to the american people about his contacts with russian operatives before the election. cohen told the judge that blind loyalty had led him to cover up donald trump's quote dirty deeds his lawyer argued he should be spared jail time for providing information to prosecutors about the most powerful man in the country the lawyer for one of the women cohen paid off to stop her from revealing an alleged affair with the president saw differently cohen is a criminal. and he's a liar he sought to cover this up for the american people this man is no hero and we look forward to him for being every single day a federal judge the judge in the case said cohen's cooperation with special counsel robert muller who deemed his information credible and relevant had to be balanced against the serious nature of his many crimes and he gave cohen who won't go to

prison until march ascend. since that was less than federal sentencing guidelines like. what michael cohen's conviction ultimately will mean for the president remains to be seen but the man who once said he'd take a bullet for donald trump now beginning in march will serve three years behind bars for covering for him kristen salumi al-jazeera new york judge sugarman is a professor of law at fordham university school of law he joins us live from west newson in massachusetts and what does this sentence really mean for president trump especially now it seems cut in a suggesting that candidate trying or did the payments to adult film star stormy daniels we could see if you things from this sentence first of all three years is less than what metaphor is going to get metaphor it might be going to jail for the rest of his life but it's a lot more than what general flynn may get which might be no jail time so what this

suggests is that cohen has cooperated a little bit but there's no cooperation deal with cohen has not entered a formal cooperation agreement which means that his cooperation has been partial so one message that the court and the prosecutors have sent to cohen is you could face more jail time you could be like metaphor or you could be more like the deal that flynn got which is no jail time so one point is that cohen really has an opportunity to cooperate further there's still another opportunity for a sentence to be lessened if you cooperates more if he cooperates more then than present trump is facing even more trouble and what are the implications for president trying there's been talk potentially pietschmann and i mean that's speculation at this stage obviously but in your mind is that even a possibility. well let me first talk about indictment i think that's we there's

always going to be a question about the impeachment process and the politics of it but i think there's a legal argument now more strongly than ever before that a sitting president can be indicted and the reason why is that this particular crime that we're now discussing about cohen and the in the campaign related payment to keep two mistresses silent to keep it to affairs quiet is now not only from cohen but also from the national enquirer as parent company am i they just released a statement a non-prosecution agreement with with prosecutors that the payment they were involved with with mr cohen and mr trump was coordinated for election purposes the quote was in concert so now we have mr cohen and am on both saying to prosecutors this was a this was campaign related money that means it's a felony here is where this comes together for an indictment there is

a statute of limitations which means that there is a time frame a deadline in which time one has to bring a an indictment or the case or the clock runs out and prosecutors can't bring a case for campaign finance felonies that statute of limitations deadline is five years. the problem is that president trump could win not only one election but a second one and that clock would run out so some people have said well the answer to that the solution is to do what's called tolling which means stop the clock it's called equitable tolling in fact the d.o.j. policy emphasizes relies upon that tolling idea the problem is that in research that i've done and other people are now doing there's no evidence that this thing that the d.o.j. is relying on actually exists for criminal defendants there is no stopping the clock for statutes of limitations because it would be against the rule of law to let a president simply run out the clock on crimes then the d.o.j.

has a responsibility to indict someone so that they do answer for their crimes the conclusion i reach is that a sitting president must be indicted if there's evidence of his wrongdoing in order that he faces justice but just to be clear is that a real possibility now with the way the law sets can a sitting president be indicted and if not then what one consequences could he potentially face. making the argument that he can be indicted the only thing there's no law that says he can't be the only thing standing in the way of the indictment right now is a memo is an opinion from from the department of justice under president clinton. eighteen years ago so the question now comes up will the will robert muller try and

bring an indictment to make sure that this issue is not lost president trapes to face this issue of in face this question the other topics that come up the other potential indictments are not just for president trump himself but now we're looking at the potential indictments of his company trump organization because they were involved with these payments both federal prosecutors and state prosecutors could indict trump organization and its executive officers and also the trump campaign the other person who's now in the crosshairs who is very important is the trump organization chief financial officer the c.f.o. named allan weisel berg he played a role on the audiotapes when when michael cohen was odd it was was bugged was taping the conversations he was on he was mentioning allen weisel berg and allen weisel berg may be a pivotal figure not only for the question of campaign finance crimes but also what does he know about money laundering if president trump was money laundering from russia then the person who knows that the clearest would be alan weisel chicken and

massachusetts thanks so much for your time great thank you canada's foreign minister says that the extradition process as well as chief financial officer should not be politicized christian friend and made the comments a day often show was released on bail she was arrested in vancouver on december fast now faces extradition to the u.s. to face charges she violated sanctions on iran. it is thought to be incumbent on parties seeking an extradition from canada. recognizing that canada is a rule of law country to ensure that any extradition request is about ensuring that justice is done is about ensuring that the rule of law is respected and is not politicized or for any other purpose. there

is daniel lack reports from toronto you heard from the foreign minister chrystia freeland there saying that no party who wants to extradite someone from canada should politicize their request and she made that risk in response to a question about president donald trump statement earlier this week that if needs be it helped expedite a trade deal between the us and china that he would intervene in the while we're extradition process that's something that is feeling didn't expect to be answering questions on they called this news conference to discuss the fact that there are certain safeguards that will protect miss one joe's rights that will also make sure that senior canadian judges hear this and that it will take some time for this to one full equally canada's got a problem because a canadian former diplomat who's on leave to work for the international crisis group has been picked up in china and is being questioned by the beijing state

security bureau now it's not been directly confirmed that this is a tit for tat move but many former canadian diplomats think it is it's a real problem unfolding for the canadians. still ahead on al-jazeera looking for a way out of lebanon palestinian refugees seek new routes to escape desperate conditions. mexico's new president moves to undo controversial education reforms but at what cost. they have consistently chosen to uphold and maintain and defend the abusive outness fear that they created gymnast who was sexually abused by former united states team dr larry nasa says reforms on toughening fast enough.