Trump says he's spoken with Saudis at 'highest level' over Khashoggi

US President Donald Trump in the Oval Office. Photo / AP

US President Donald Trump said he has spoken with Saudi Arabia "at the highest level" about the disappearance of Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist and prominent critic of his country's royal family, who was last seen entering the kingdom's consulate in Istanbul.

Trump, speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, said he's spoken "more than once" with the Saudis in recent days but didn't provide details of the conversation. Trump said that Khashoggi's fiancée had sent him a letter and may come to the White House soon.

"I'm not happy about it," Trump said of Khashoggi's disappearance. When asked whether he's demanding answers from the Saudis, Trump said, "yes we are. We are demanding everything."

"We want to see what's going on there," he said. "That's a bad situation. Frankly, because it's a reporter, you could say in many respects, it brings it to a level. It's a very serious situation for us."

The New York Times reported that Turkish officials believe Kashoggi was killed inside the consulate, at the orders of Saudi Arabia's leadership. The New York Times and the Washington Post both reported that private planes carrying Saudi Arabian agents arrived in Istanbul shortly before and after Kashoggi entered the consulate and left the same day. Kashoggi was a Post columnist.

Saudi officials have denied Kashoggi was killed within the consulate and say he left shortly after arriving to retrieve a document related to his upcoming wedding. They have provided no evidence of his departure.

Trump on Tuesday said he was "very concerned about it." He added that "there's some pretty bad stories going around - I do not like it." US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has called for Saudi Arabia to support an investigation into Khashoggi's disappearance.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman told Bloomberg News in an interview last week that Khashoggi had left the consulate shortly after entering it last week and that he was ready to let Turkey search the building.

Khashoggi, who had been living in self-imposed exile for the past year, vanished on October 2, after he entered the consulate to obtain a document. Turkey's President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said he was personally involved in the case, which threatens ties between Ankara and Riyadh.

If evidence implicates the Saudi Government in Khashoggi's disappearance or death, it would indicate a new level of violence that authorities are willing to undertake to silence criticism of the crown prince, whose jailing of opponents at home has undercut his efforts to fashion himself as a moderniser of his conservative kingdom.

A Turkish news channel has just broadcast CCTV footage of members of the Saudi hit squad arriving in Turkey, then entering, and leaving, the consulate where Jamal Khashoggi vanished pic.twitter.com/HXh6yhK0KB

— Piotr Zalewski (@p_zalewski) October 10, 2018

"We're working very closely with Turkey and I think we'll get to the bottom of it," Trump said today.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker said that he told the Saudi ambassador the Khashoggi's disappearance could lead the US to curtail arms sales to the kingdom.

The Senate "barely" approved the last round of arms sales, Corker said he told Prince Khalid bin Salman. "I very much doubt we could pass another one," Corker said.

Corker said that he had warned the kingdom that its political support in the Senate is "the lowest ever" and that if Saudi officials are responsible for Kashoggi's disappearance, "this would drop it off a cliff."

- Bloomberg

Jamal Khashoggi was on the cusp of starting a democracy group to provide "a counter narrative in the Arab world and the West to Arab Spring skeptics" when the Saudis disappeared him. @woodruffbets scoop: https://t.co/XMANRercA6

— Spencer Ackerman (@attackerman) October 10, 2018