Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin Says He Won’t Attend Investment Conference In Saudi Arabia
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin announced Thursday that he will be skipping a high-profile investor conference in Saudi Arabia due to the ever-growing pile of evidence suggesting that the kingdom killed and dismembered Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, according to CNN.
Reports indicate that Khashoggi went to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to get the paperwork to remarry, but when he entered he was ambushed, tortured, and dismembered by a Saudi Arabian hit squad according to the Inquisitr.
Earlier this week, Mnuchin told reporters he would base his decision to go on what Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had to say after his trip to Saudi Arabia to speak with the royal family in Riyadh.
“We’re going to revisit the decision again tomorrow,” Mnuchin said. “So for now we are. We’re going to make a decision tomorrow based on Secretary Pompeo’s report.”
Despite Pompeo urging U.S. officials to give the Saudis “a few more days” on their investigation into what happened with Khashoggi, Mnuchin seemed to have heard enough to reverse his decision from earlier in the week, tweeting,
Just met with @realDonaldTrump and @SecPompeo and we have decided, I will not be participating in the Future Investment Initiative summit in Saudi Arabia.
— Steven Mnuchin (@stevenmnuchin1) October 18, 2018
Mnuchin is just the latest world official to withdraw from the summit in the past few days.
UK Trade Minister Liam Fox released a statement of his own on the matter.
“The Secretary of State for International Trade has decided the time is not right for him to attend the Future Investment Initiative in Riyadh on 23 October,” said a UK government spokesman in a statement Thursday. “The UK remains very concerned about Jamal Khashoggi’s disappearance.”
The statement continued, “We encourage Turkish-Saudi collaboration and look forward to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia conducting a thorough, credible, transparent, and prompt investigation, as announced. Those bearing responsibility for his disappearance must be held to account.”
French finance minister Bruno Le Maire also ruled himself out, canceling his plans to attend the conference.
“The conditions have not yet been met for me to go to Riyadh,” Le Maire told French television’s Public Senat. “The facts are serious and we want to know the truth.”
The Dutch finance minister jumped ship as well, with a source telling CNN that “the minister is not going.”
The heads of BNP Paribas and Societe Generale, two major French banks, dropped out on Wednesday along with Chris Lagarde, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund.
Despite nations around the world condemning Saudi Arabia for the slaying, President Trump has repeatedly come to the kingdom’s defense, insisting the royal family has “totally denied” knowledge of the murder, despite piles of evidence to the contrary, and told reporters he believed answers would be coming “shortly.”
