Trump, Breaking With U.S. Intelligence, Appears to Accept Saudi Explanation of Journalist’s Death
WASHINGTON — President Trump broke with his own intelligence agencies on Friday, appearing to accept Saudi Arabia’s explanation that the journalist Jamal Khashoggi was killed by accident during a fistfight, while the United States’ spy agencies are increasingly convinced that he was assassinated on high-level orders from the Saudi royal court.
Mr. Trump, who has cultivated Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and made Saudi Arabia the linchpin of his Middle East strategy, has been deeply reluctant to point a finger at the prince, despite evidence linking him to Saudi operatives who entered the country’s consulate in Istanbul the same day that Mr. Khashoggi disappeared there.
Asked during a visit to an Air Force base in Arizona whether he viewed the Saudi explanation as credible, Mr. Trump said, “I do.”
The president said he still had questions for Prince Mohammed, and he called the killing of Mr. Khashoggi “unacceptable.” Mr. Trump also raised the possibility of sanctions against Saudi Arabia, but said that he hoped that Congress would not try to block billions of dollars in weapons sales to the kingdom, which he has held up as proof of the fruits of the alliance.
Mr. Trump’s response sets up a clash with Congress, where Republicans and Democrats both tarred the Saudi explanation as lacking credibility. A senior lawmaker briefed on American intelligence assessments of the circumstances surrounding Mr. Khashoggi’s death, and the likely culprits, said it was not consistent with the Saudi account.
The lawmaker, Representative Adam B. Schiff of California, the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said, “The kingdom and all involved in this brutal murder must be held accountable, and if the Trump administration will not take the lead, Congress must.”
Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina and a close ally of Mr. Trump’s, declared in a Twitter post, “To say that I am skeptical of the new Saudi narrative about Mr. Khashoggi is an understatement.” He added, “It’s hard to find this latest ‘explanation’ as credible.”
The growing evidence that Mr. Khashoggi, a Virginia resident and a columnist for The Washington Post, was killed on orders from the Saudi royal family has put Mr. Trump in an increasingly untenable position.
On Friday evening, the president praised the statement issued by the Saudi government, which confirmed Mr. Khashoggi’s death, as a “good first step” and a “big step.” Earlier, the prince and other senior Saudi officials had denied any role in Mr. Khashoggi’s disappearance.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo spoke with Prince Mohammed by phone on Friday evening and then briefed Mr. Trump and his national security adviser, John R. Bolton, according to a White House spokesman.
“I think we’re getting close to solving a big problem,” Mr. Trump told reporters at the Luke Air Force Base, where he was shown an Apache helicopter, an F-35 fighter jet and an array of bombs.
For the president, Saudi Arabia has become a key ally but also a troublesome partner. Saudi support is critical to his efforts to isolate Iran. But he has watched as Prince Mohammed pursued a deadly war in Yemen, carried on a feud with his neighbor Qatar, jailed female dissidents and detained hundreds of wealthy Saudis.
Mr. Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, cultivated a relationship with the prince, who is close to him in age and who Mr. Kushner hoped would be an advocate for his peace proposal between Israel and the Palestinians.
In internal discussions, Mr. Kushner has urged the president and his aides not to abandon Prince Mohammed. But as Turkish officials leaked details of the grisly killing of Mr. Khashoggi and of the dismemberment of his body, the White House has become increasingly isolated in its defense of Saudi Arabia.
A stream of prominent Wall Street and tech executives canceled plans to attend an investor conference convened by the prince next week in Riyadh, the Saudi capital. On Thursday, Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, pulled out of the conference, as well, though he will attend a separate meeting on counterterrorism strategy.
In an interview on Thursday with The New York Times, Mr. Trump acknowledged that the furor over Mr. Khashoggi’s death had mushroomed into one of the biggest foreign policy crises of his presidency.
“This one has caught the imagination of the world, unfortunately,” Mr. Trump said. “It’s not a positive. Not a positive.”
The president also said on Thursday that it was still “a little bit early” in the process to draw definitive conclusions about who ordered the killing. But he expressed no doubt that the truth would come out soon.
“We’re working with the intelligence from numerous countries,” he said, adding, “This is the best intelligence we could have.”
On Wednesday, The Times reported that American intelligence officials were increasingly convinced that Prince Mohammed is culpable in Mr. Khashoggi’s death, and that they were preparing an appraisal for the White House.
Saudi Arabia tried to project the idea of a housecleaning, announcing that Saud al-Qahtani, a close aide to the crown prince; Maj. Gen. Ahmed al-Assiri, the deputy director of Saudi intelligence; and other high-ranking intelligence officials had been dismissed.
For Mr. Trump, who is on a three-day swing in the West before the midterm elections, the Khashoggi affair has become a distraction during a period in which he had hoped to campaign for Republican congressional candidates on a message of economic growth and the recent confirmation of Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.
Just after answering questions about the Saudi announcement, Mr. Trump flew to a “Make America Great Again” rally in Mesa, Ariz.