The president has previously suggested that the dissident’s disappearance from the Saudi consulate in Turkey should not endanger a lucrative arms deal with the U. S.
W ith rumors flying thick and fast about the disappearance of Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi, who vanished at the Saudi consulate in Turkey earlier this month, President Donald Trump has kept his public remarks on the controversy surprisingly restrained. That changed Monday morning when, talking to reporters after getting off the phone with King Salman of Saudi Arabia, Trump repeatedly noted that Salman “strongly denies” his country’s involvement with Khashoggi’s disappearance and floated the idea that “maybe these could have been rogue killers.”
Turkey has accused Saudi Arabia of orchestrating Khashoggi’s assassination and dismemberment inside the consulate. Saudi Arabia has denied the accusation, but has yet to produce evidence that the writer ever left the building alive.
“All I can do is report what he told me,” Trump said of the call. “And he told me in a very firm way that they had no knowledge of it. He said it very strongly.… And it sounded like he, and also the crown prince, had no knowledge.”
Trump’s remarks about Salman, a key administration ally, were strongly reminiscent of the time he said he believed Vladimir Putin’s denial that Russia meddled in the 2016 elections.
“They said they think it’s Russia,” Trump said in a July joint press conference, referring to the U. S. intelligence community’s assessment that Putin had orchestrated the meddling. “I have President Putin, he just said it’s not Russia. I will say this: I don’t see any reason why it would be. I have great confidence in my intelligence people, but I will tell you that President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today.”
As the U. S. continues to investigate Khashoggi’s disappearance, here’s a quick recap of Trump’s evolving public statements on the matter.
On Tuesday, October 9, a little less than a week after the disappearance, Trump told reporters he was “concerned” about Khashoggi, and that “hopefully that will sort itself out.”
“Right now, nobody knows anything about it,” he said.
The White House stepped up its response the next day amid pressure from congressional Republicans like Senator Lindsey Graham, who told reporters on October 10 that “the explanations I hear coming from Saudi Arabia make no sense” and said that “I’ve never been more disturbed than I am right now.” That same day, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo issued a statement calling on Saudi Arabia to “support a thorough investigation of Mr. Khashoggi’s disappearance and to be transparent about the results of that investigation.” Another day, and Trump himself was telling reporters that “we’re looking at it very, very seriously.”
“We’re being very tough, and we have investigators over there, and we’re working with Turkey, and, frankly, we’re working with Saudi Arabia,” Trump said. “We want to find out what happened. He went in and it doesn’t look like he came out.”
But Trump also insisted that even if Saudi Arabia did order Khashoggi killed, there were certain economic actions he would be unwilling to take—such as cancelling a multibillion dollar arms deal the two countries inked last year.
“I would not be in favor of stopping a country from spending $110 billion, which is an all-time record, and letting Russia have that money and letting China have that money,” Trump said. “But we’re looking for the answer. And I think probably you’ll have an answer sooner than people think.”
Trump carried that line of argument through the weekend, insisting on several occasions, including during Saturday evening’s Oval Office reception for recently freed U. S. pastor Andrew Brunson, that the arms deal was “a tremendous order really from an economic development standpoint” and that cancelling it would be tantamount to “punishing ourselves.”
“There are other things we can do that are very, very powerful, very strong,” Trump said.
