Today in one sentence: Trump said it "certainly looks" as if Jamal Khashoggi is dead; intelligence agencies are confident that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was involved in the murder of Khashoggi; Pompeo, meanwhile, said the U.S. will give Saudi Arabia "a few more days" to investigate; and Saudi Arabia might try to blame a high-ranking intelligence adviser for the killing of Khashoggi.

1/ Trump: It “certainly looks” as if Jamal Khashoggi is dead. Trump said there would be “very severe” consequences if the Saudis killed him, but that it was still “a little bit early” to draw conclusions about who ordered the killing. (Associated Press / New York Times / Washington Post)

  • Republican lawmakers are threatening to sanction and end arms sales to the Saudis, despite Trump’s objection to canceling a $110 billion arms deal. He claims the deal would create 500,000 U.S. jobs. Additionally, a bipartisan group of senators have invoked the 2016 Magnitsky Act, giving the administration 120 days to respond to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee about potential sanctions against officials responsible for human rights violations. (Bloomberg)

  • Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin will not attend next week’s investment conference in Saudi Arabia after talking with Trump and Pompeo. (CNBC / Wall Street Journal / Politico / Washington Post / New York Times)

2/ U.S. intelligence agencies are confident that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was involved in the disappearance and murder of Khashoggi. While spy agencies haven’t been able to collect direct evidence about whether Mohammed ordered the killing of Khashoggi or if his intention was to have Khashoggi captured and taken back to Saudi Arabia, circumstantial evidence points to the prince’s involvement. (New York Times)

3/ Mike Pompeo said the U.S. will give Saudi Arabia “a few more days” to investigate the death of Khashoggi while the Saudi royal family looks for an explanation that doesn’t implicate Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Pompeo said the Saudis could be trusted to “conduct a complete, thorough investigation,” because they “made a personal commitment to me, and the Crown Prince also made a personal commitment to the president.” Asked if his administration was trying to give the Saudis room to come up with an explanation absolving Mohammed, Trump said: “I’m not giving cover at all. They are an ally.” (NBC News / Washington Post / Politico / CNN)

  • The U.S. received $100 million from Saudi Arabia the same day Mike Pompeo arrived in Riyadh to discuss Khashoggi’s disappearance. Saudi Arabia publicly pledged the payment to support U.S. stabilization efforts in northeastern Syria in August, but the timing of the transfer raised questions about a potential payoff as Riyadh tries to manage the fallout over Khashoggi’s disappearance. (Washington Post)

4/ Saudi Arabia might blame a high-ranking intelligence adviser for the killing of Khashoggi. Blaming Gen. Ahmed al-Assiri, an advisor to the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, would provide the crown prince with plausible explanation for the killing. (New York Times)

  • A frequent companion of Saudi Arabia’s crown prince entered the country’s consulate in Istanbul hours before Khashoggi arrived. Maher Abdulaziz Mutreb was also seen outside the Saudi consul general’s home, leaving a Turkish hotel with a large suitcase, and leaving Istanbul — all in the same day. (New York Times)

  • One of the 15 suspects in the alleged murder of Khashoggi died in a “suspicious traffic accident.” Mashal Saad al-Bostani was a member of the Saudi Royal Air Force and one of the 15 suspects who landed in Istanbul on Oct. 2 – the day that Khashoggi disappeared – and left the same day after visiting the Saudi consulate. (Yeni Safak / Business Insider / New York Post)

  • At least nine of 15 suspects identified by Turkish authorities worked for the Saudi security services, military or other government ministries. (New York Times)

5/ Aras Agalarov formed a U.S. shell company a month before the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting between Trump Jr. and Natalia Veselnitskaya, the Kremlin-linked Russian attorney offering damaging information about Hillary Clinton. The Russian billionaire moved almost $20 million to a U.S. bank account 11 days after the meeting using a company he formed anonymously with the help of an accountant who has had clients accused of money laundering and embezzlement. (The Guardian)

  • 📌 The Re-up: Day 601. Federal investigators are looking into a series of suspicious financial transactions involving people who attended the 2016 Trump Tower meeting. The transfers reveal how Aras Agalarov, a Russian billionaire with strong ties to Trump and Putin, used overseas accounts to distribute money through a web of banks to himself, his son, and at least two people who attended the meeting. Investigators are focusing on two bursts of activity: one occurring shortly before the Trump Tower meeting and one immediately after the 2016 election. (BuzzFeed News / The Hill)

Notables.

  1. Trump threatened to deploy the military to the U.S.-Mexico border and upend the reworked trade deal with Mexico and Canada if Central American countries don’t stop a convoy of Honduran migrants making its way toward the U.S. Trump also threatened to “CLOSE OUR SOUTHERN BORDER!”(Bloomberg / The Guardian / Washington Post)

  2. John Kelly and national security adviser John Bolton got into a shouting match in the West Wing after Trump sided with Bolton over deploying the military to the border. (CNN / Bloomberg)

  3. Don McGahn is out as White House counsel. McGahn planned to leave the White House this fall, but his exit was expedited after Trump announced Patrick Cipollone as his successor. Cippolone served as a Justice Department lawyer under the George H.W. Bush administration. (CNN / New York Times)

  4. 👋 Who The Fuck Has Left The Trump Administration. A timeline of all the departures so far… (WTF Just Happened Today Community Forum)

  5. Robert Mueller is pushing Paul Manafort to provide information about Roger Stone, who may have communicated with Julian Assange or WikiLeaks about releasing hacked emails from Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Manafort agreed to cooperate with the special counsel as part of pleading guilty to two counts of conspiracy. He is also awaiting sentencing on 18 counts of financial crimes. (ABC News)

  6. Trump’s lawyers called a sexual assault lawsuit by a former “The Apprentice” contestant “meritless” and “politically-motivated.” Summer Zervos alleges that Trump groped and kissed her without her consent in 2007. (ABC News)

  7. Trump was more involved in stopping a long-term plan to move the FBI to the D.C. than previously known. Prior to the election, Trump wanted to move the FBI headquarters moving out of Washington, D.C. so he could acquire the land and redevelop the property. After being sworn in, he became ineligible to obtain the property and moved to block competitors from acquiring the land. The Trump International Hotel is located a block away from the current FBI headquarters. (CNN / NPR)

  8. The Trump Organization sued the estate of a man who died in a Trump Tower apartment fire for $90,000 in unpaid maintenance fees. (NBC News)