Secretary of Treasury Steven Mnuchin later said that after meeting with Trump and Pompeo Thursday morning, he would not be attending the Future Investment Initiative summit in Saudi Arabia as initially planned.

WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Thursday after meeting with President Trump at the White House that the U.S. will give Saudi Arabia several more days to “conduct a complete, thorough investigation” into the disappearance of journalist Jamal Khashoggi before deciding on a response.

“There are lots of stories out there about what has happened. We are going to allow the process to move forward,” Pompeo said at the White House after a morning meeting with the president.

“I told President Trump this morning we ought to give them a few more days to complete that so that we too have a complete understanding surrounding the facts that so at which point, we can make a decision how or if the United States should respond to the incident surrounding Mr. Khashoggi,” he said.

Asked whether the Saudis, who have been accused of being responsible for Khashoggi’s disappearance, could be trusted to investigate, Pompeo expressed confidence in the kingdom.

“We’re all going to get to see the response from Saudi Arabia to this. When we see that, we’ll get a chance to determine—all of us will get a chance to make a determination as to the credibility of the work that went into that, whether it’s truly accurate, fair, and transparent in the very way they made a personal commitment to me, and ultimately made a personal commitment to the president when they spoke to him.”

He added that Saudi Arabia was also “an important strategic alliance of the United States. We need to be mindful of that as well.”

Secretary of Treasury Steven Mnuchin confirmed on Twitter that after meeting with Trump and Pompeo Thursday morning, he would not be attending the Future Investment Initiative summit in Saudi Arabia as initially planned. Many media organizations and business leaders had pulled out of the meeting following Khashoggi’s disappearance.

Trump himself said after the meeting only, via Twitter, that he had met with Pompeo, and that the secretary “is waiting for the results of the investigations being done by the Saudis and Turkey, and just gave a news conference to that effect.”

Pompeo met with President Trump Thursday for the first time since he returned from meetings with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Saudi Arabia and Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey earlier this week.

The secretary of state arrived in Turkey on Wednesday as alleged audio recordings of Saudi officials killing Khashoggi were made public, putting even more pressure on the White House to deliver a strong rebuke against the Crown Prince.

On Wednesday, Trump cast doubt on the leaked audio recordings, telling reporters he was “not sure yet that it exists,” but that if it was, the U.S. had asked Turkey to share it.

In an interview with the Associated Press, Trump also compared Khashoggi’s disappearance to the sexual assault allegations against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

“Here we go again with, you know, you’re guilty until proven innocent,” Trump said. “We just went through that with Justice Kavanaugh, and he was innocent all the way as far as I’m concerned.”