Monday October 15, 2018
By Jill Colvin and Hope Yen
WASHINGTON (AP) — In a comment that seemed designed to give Saudi
officials a route to climb down from outright denials, President Donald
Trump suggested Monday that "rogue killers" could be responsible for the
disappearance and presumed murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who
hasn't been seen since entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul two
weeks ago.
Trump's comment came after a 20-minute phone call with
Saudi Arabia's King Salman in which Trump said the king adamantly denied
any knowledge of what happened to Khashoggi. Trump announced he'd
dispatched Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to the kingdom — and anywhere
else necessary — to get to the bottom of the apparent demise of
Khashoggi, a Saudi who had been living and working in the United States.
Meanwhile,
rumors were rife in Turkey that Saudi Arabia was about to admit
Khashoggi was killed but to contend the nation's rulers didn't order it —
an explanation that could generally be in line with Trump's comment."The king firmly denied any knowledge of it," Trump told reporters as
he left the White House for a trip to survey hurricane damage in
Florida and in Georgia. Trump said he didn't "want to get into
(Salman's) mind," but told reporters: "it sounded to me like maybe these
could have been rogue killers. I mean, who knows? We're going to try
getting to the bottom of it very soon, but his was a flat denial."
The
comments marked a break from the Trump administration's strenuous
refusal to speculate over what happened to Khashoggi and came as the
U.S. president is under growing pressure to take action on the case of
the Saudi writer, who was a contributor to The Washington Post and wrote
columns critical of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Turkish
officials say they believe Saudi agents killed and dismembered Khashoggi
and say Turkey has audio and video recordings of it. The kingdom has
called the allegations of foul play "baseless" but has offered no
evidence the writer left the consulate.
The State Department has
urged a thorough investigation and called on Saudi Arabia to be
transparent about the results — advice broadly tracking messages from
allies in Europe. Germany, Britain and France issued a joint statement
over the weekend expressing "grave concern" and calling for a credible
investigation to ensure those responsible for the disappearance "are
held to account."
Trump quoted the King on Monday as saying that
neither he nor his son, the crown prince, had any information about what
had happened to Khashoggi.
The crown prince, ambitious,
aggressive and just 33 in a kingdom long ruled by aging monarchs, has
considerable weight in Saudi government actions. He and Trump's
son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, have forged close ties.
In
Istanbul, meanwhile, investigators entered the consulate for their own
investigation. The members arrived by unmarked police cars but said
nothing to journalists waiting outside as they entered the building.
Trump tweeted early Monday that Salman denied any knowledge of "whatever may have happened 'to our Saudi Arabian citizen.'"
He made that point again and again as he left the White House, telling reporters, "All I can do is report what he told me."
"His
denial to me could not have been stronger," Trump said, echoing
language he has used to describe Russian President Vladimir Putin's
denials of meddling in the 2016 election that sent Trump to the White
House. U.S. intelligence officials have reported they are certain the
interference took place in an effort to hurt Hillary Clinton's campaign.
Trump
last week vowed to uncover the truth about what happened to Khashoggi
and promised "severe punishment" for those responsible.
But he has
said repeatedly that he does not want to halt a proposed $110 billion
arms sale to Saudi Arabia — as some in Congress have said he should —
because it would harm the U.S. economically..
Saudi Arabia has pledged to retaliate economically for any U.S. punitive action.
Trump said he'd made clear the stakes.
"The
world is watching, the world is talking. This is very important to get
to the bottom of it," Trump said. "I think he understands that very
well."
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin still plans to attend a
previously scheduled Saudi conference this week to address terrorist
financing, but those plans could change as the investigation progresses,
said White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow.
Sens. Marco Rubio
and Jeff Flake, members of the Foreign Relations Committee, have said
Congress is prepared to move quickly and firmly if Trump fails to
adequately respond to Khashoggi's disappearance. Rubio said Sunday that
U.S.-Saudi relations may need to be "completely revised."
"There's
not enough money in the world for us to buy back our credibility on
human rights if we do not move forward and take swift action," Rubio
said on CBS' "Face the Nation."
More than 20 Republican and
Democratic senators instructed Trump last week to order an investigation
into Khashoggi's disappearance under legislation that authorizes
sanctions for perpetrators of extrajudicial killings, torture or other
gross human rights violations.
Khashoggi had been living in self-exile in Virginia for the past year.
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Associated Press writer Matthew Pennington contributed to this report.