By Eli Stokols, Tracy Wilkinson and Umar Farooq

Los Angeles Times

WASHINGTON, D.C. — President Donald Trump suggested Monday that “rogue killers,” not the Saudi government, may be to blame for the disappearance and suspected murder of Jamal Khashoggi, the Virginia-based dissident Saudi journalist, offering a possible escape hatch to the beleaguered Saudi royal family as it pushed back against a global furor.

After speaking by phone with Saudi Arabia’s King Salman bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud Salman, Trump said he was sending Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo to meet the king in Riyadh to follow up on the macabre case, which has put White House ties to the Saudi rulers in a harsh spotlight and isolated the Saudi government.

CNN subsequently reported that the Saudis were preparing to acknowledge that Khashoggi’s death was the result of an interrogation that went wrong, one that was intended to lead to his abduction from Turkey. There was no independent confirmation.

Trump said Pompeo, who left Washington shortly after noon, also may visit Turkey, where Khashoggi was last seen entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2. Turkish media reports, based in part on apparent audio recordings, have said Khashoggi was beaten to death and then dismembered in the building.

The president said King Salman had firmly denied any knowledge or involvement in Khashoggi’s fate. The king gave a similar denial to Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, over the weekend, and Erdogan also suggested that the journalist’s death was not officially sanctioned.

The calls appeared to break a two-week impasse over Turkey’s demands to enter the Saudi diplomatic compound. On Monday, Saudi officials met with Turkish police and prosecutors at police headquarters in Istanbul for about two hours, and then began making their way separately to the compound.

Even as they met, a clean-up crew carrying mops and buckets was seen entering the consulate. A team of Turkish police investigators and forensic specialists, along with senior Turkish and Saudi officials, later followed.

Speaking to reporters on the South Lawn, Trump said he had spoken to King Salman for about 20 minutes and “he denies any knowledge of what took place with regards to, as he said, to Saudi Arabia’s citizen. He firmly denies that.”

“We are going to leave nothing uncovered,” Trump said. “With that being said, the king firmly denies any knowledge of it. He didn’t really know, maybe, I don’t want to get into his mind but it sounded to me like maybe it could have been rogue killers. Who knows? We’re going to try to get to the bottom of it very soon but his was a flat denial.”

Asked if he believed the king, Trump said, “His denial to me could not have been stronger that he had no knowledge. And it sounds like he and also the crown prince had no knowledge.”

Khashoggi’s opinion columns in The Washington Post and in Arab media reportedly had antagonized the crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, who is the de facto ruler of the authoritarian Saudi state. MBS, as he is known, has largely eclipsed the 82-year-old king on the global stage and has built close ties with Jared Kushner, Trump’s senior adviser and son-in-law.

The president’s credulity with the Saudi king is not the first time he has accepted a foreign leader’s version of events that contradicts a consensus on Capitol Hill, among experts on regional politics and in foreign capitals.

Trump memorably dismissed his own intelligence community’s conclusions that Moscow interfered with the 2016 presidential election, accepting Russian President Vladimir Putin’s denial of any involvement during a press conference in July in Helsinki. Under intense criticism, he later said he had misspoke.

As criticism intensified over Khashoggi’s disappearance, Trump also has appeared to back down. After days of sidestepping the furor, he told “60 Minutes” in an interview broadcast Sunday that he would impose “severe punishment” if Saudi authorities were found responsible for Khashoggi’s death, without saying what that punishment might entail.

His comments prompted an immediate pushback from Riyadh, where Saudi officials warned they would respond in kind.

“The kingdom affirms its total rejection of any threats and attempts to undermine it, whether by threatening to impose economic sanctions, using political pressures, or repeating false accusations,” the Saudi state news agency quoted an unnamed official as saying. “The kingdom’s economy has an influential and vital role in the global economy.”

The Saudis cited a possible cutback in oil production, a move that would drive up global energy prices. It’s not clear how long they could sustain a downturn given the kingdom’s heavy reliance on oil revenue. Thanks to recent development of shale oil reserves, the United States now imports about 11 percent of its oil from Saudi Arabia, a sharp decline from decades ago.

On Monday, Trump also emphasized again that he will not cancel or suspend billions of dollars in arms sales to the kingdom as a clear sign of American displeasure.

Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin is still planning to attend an investment summit in Riyadh organized by the crown prince, even as scores of business leaders and media organizations from around the world have dropped out over Khashoggi’s disappearance.

The administration has invested serious political capital in its relationship with the Saudi regime. Trump, following Kushner’s advice, made Saudi Arabia his first stop on his first foreign trip as president in May 2017. Recent presidents have generally visited America’s neighbors, Canada or Mexico, first.

Foreign policy and national security officials at the White House have argued that Saudi Arabia can be the linchpin for U.S. priorities in the Middle East, including constraining Iran and achieving a long-shot peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians.

But the Saudis helped scuttle a proposal drafted by Kushner and Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt after it favored Israel heavily and offered few concessions to the Palestinians. The White House was reportedly stunned at the rejection.

Members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee have formally requested that Trump consider imposing economic sanctions on Saudi Arabia under a U.S. law that allows punishment of those held responsible for egregious human rights abuses overseas.

Those sanctions could include barring senior members of the Saudi royal family from traveling to the United States or the freezing of some of their assets. Several members of Congress stepped up demands that the administration take action.

Some lawmakers pushed back at Trump’s willingness to accept Saudi denials of responsibility.

“President Trump’s response to Jamal Khashoggi’s disappearance reveals a man more willing to trust authoritarian leaders than reliable intelligence,” Sen. Tim Kaine, Democrat of Virginia, where Khashoggi lived, said Monday on Twitter. “It’s insulting to Jamal’s family and colleagues that this is what’s coming out of the world’s most powerful office.”

Senior Turkish officials have also raised the idea of rogue killers being at work, in part because Erdogan has sought to avoid a diplomatic crisis with the powerful Arab neighbor.

“Maybe it is not clear to the public,” said Khanfar, who last met with Khashoggi three days before he disappeared, when they shared a panel in London. “But it is 100 percent clear to the decision makers, and now it’s a question of how much they want to push the Saudis.”