(CNN) — President Donald Trump claimed on Tuesday to have “no financial interests in Saudi Arabia.” Yet in his own telling, he has reaped plenty of benefits from the massively wealthy Saudi royal family. Seeking to rebut claims his own ties to the Kingdom may be clouding his assessment of Riyadh’s involvement in the disappearance of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, Trump tweeted Tuesday morning: “For the record, I have no financial interests in Saudi Arabia (or Russia, for that matter). Any suggestion that I have is just more FAKE NEWS (of which there is plenty)!” There are no Trump Hotels or Trump golf courses in Saudi Arabia. But in the days before he became President, Trump was not shy about touting the millions of dollars he’d earned from Saudi customers. “I get along great with all of them,” Trump said of the Saudis at a 2015 campaign rally in Mobile, Alabama. “They buy apartments from me. They spend $40 million, $50 million. Am I supposed to dislike them? I like them very much!” One instance – albeit far less lucrative than Trump’s own telling – came in June 2001, when he sold the 45th floor of Trump World Tower to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for $4.5 million, according to a publicly filed deed for the transaction. Six years later, the Saudis received permission from the New York City Department of Buildings to combine the residential units into a single space to house the Saudi Mission to the United Nations, public records show. The embassy’s website lists the mission’s address at a different location. More recently, Saudis have been reliable customers at Trump Hotels when traveling in the United States. At the Trump International Hotel in Washington, which has served as something of an unofficial headquarters for foreign governments in the Trump era, a lobbying firm for Saudi Arabia paid the hotel more than $270,000 between October 2016 and March 2017. The Washington Post also reported Trump Hotels in New York and Chicago have benefited from a rush of visitors from Saudi Arabia in recent months. The President, who has no public events on his schedule Tuesday, is facing a crisis with a top US security partner. Saudi Arabia initially denied any involvement in Khashoggi’s disappearance. But sources have told CNN that the kingdom is preparing to blame Khashoggi’s death, which occurred in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, on an interrogation gone wrong. Trump has ruled out halting billions of dollars in arms sales to Saudi Arabia, deeming them essential for US jobs. The President said Monday that Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin would decide by Friday whether to follow the lead of top bank executives and investors and withdraw from a high-profile economic conference scheduled for next week in Riyadh. Trump dispatched Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to meet on Tuesday in the Saudi capital with King Salman and his powerful son, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Trump himself spoke with the King on Monday. This story has been updated.<doc-sep>Amid the mystery of Jamal Khashoggi’s disappearance and possible murder in a Saudi consulate, President Donald Trump has cast plenty of doubt on whether Saudi Arabia was responsible — speculating that “rogue killers” may have killed the journalist and that Saudi leaders are not to blame. He even went as far as to tweet early Monday morning that his views are not influenced by personal conflicts of interest. “For the record, I have no financial interests in Saudi Arabia (or Russia, for that matter),” Trump said. “Any suggestion that I have is just more FAKE NEWS (of which there is plenty)!” This is not true — as a Fox News-affiliated Twitter account quickly pointed out. Fox News Research, a research group for the Fox News media company, published a rebuttal tweet less than an hour after the president’s remarks, delineating a history of Trump’s transactions with the Saudis that date to the early 1990s. Trump & Saudi Business: •1991: Sold yacht to Saudi Prince •2001: Sold 45th floor of Trump World Tower to Saudis •Jun 2015: I love the Saudis...many in Trump Tower •Aug 2015: "They buy apartments from me...Spend $40M-$50M" •2017: Saudi lobbyists spent $270K at Trump DC hotel — Fox News Research (@FoxNewsResearch) October 16, 2018 The timeline begins with a personal deal between Trump and Saudi Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz al Saud, when the president sold the latter his 281-foot yacht in 1991. The boat, nicknamed Trump Princess, was first handed over to creditors after the real estate mogul was found to be $900 million in debt. The next item refers to a series of business transactions between Trump and Saudis — most notably a 2001 sale of the 45th floor of the Trump World Tower in New York City for $4.5 million. “Saudi Arabia — and I get along great with all of them. They buy apartments from me,” Trump said in 2015. “They spend $40 million, $50 million. Am I supposed to dislike them? I like them very much.” The relationship between the president and the Saudi government has been under intense scrutiny over the past two weeks due to the disappearance of Khashoggi, a Saudi dissident and Washington Post columnist, an event that has caused a global uproar and created a rift in the nation’s foreign ties. In a 60 Minutes interview that aired Sunday, Trump said the US was looking at the case “very strongly” but did not have any leads on whether Saudi Arabia is behind his vanishing. The president told journalist Lesley Stahl, “We’re going to get to the bottom of it, and there will be severe punishment.” Multiple news outlets have said Saudi officials are ready to release a report disclosing that Khashoggi was killed by accident when he visited the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2. In the meantime, Turkish officials have reportedly told their American counterparts that they have audio and video recordings proving that the journalist was tortured and killed inside the building. Khashoggi, a US resident living in Virginia on self-imposed exile, was last seen entering the consulate more than two weeks ago to file some paperwork for his upcoming marriage. His fiancée, who was waiting for him outside, told Turkish media and local authorities that she never saw him exit. A group of bipartisan senators has urged Trump to place sanctions on Saudi Arabia as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo visits the nation’s de facto ruler, King Mohammed bin Salman. Yet Trump will not hold Saudi leaders responsible if it means “punishing” American companies and defense contractors. “I’ll tell you what I don’t want to do,” Trump told Stahl in the 60 Minutes interview. “I don’t want to hurt jobs. I don’t want to lose an order like that. And you know what, there are other ways of punishing.”<doc-sep>President Donald Trump has had deep business ties to the Saudi Arabian court for more than two decades. And those ties have been called into question over his lack of a tough response to Riyadh since journalist Jamal Khashoggi disappeared and was possibly killed at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. "Having a President with global business ties means we've got ongoing worries that policy is going to be affected by his business interests," Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen, which tracks potential conflicts of interest in the Trump administraition, recently told CNN. "We know that historically the Saudis have spent huge money on Trump properties and we know that since he became a candidate and was elected they have targeted discretionary spending at his hotels," Weissman added. Here are some of Trump's ties to Saudi Arabia.<doc-sep>President Donald Trump welcomes Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, U.S. March 20, 2018. Jonathan Ernst | Reuters President Donald Trump on Tuesday pushed back against a growing chorus of criticism against Saudi Arabia over the disappearance of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. "Here we go again with you're guilty until proven innocent," Trump said in the interview, comparing the allegations against Saudi Arabia to the sexual misconduct allegations from multiple women against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearing. Turkish officials told news outlets that Khashoggi had been murdered and dismembered with a bone saw when he entered the consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2. The Saudi government has denied the allegations. Earlier Tuesday, Trump said "that would be bad" if Saudi Arabia's king and crown prince knew about the suspected killing of Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate. "You'll start hearing what is happening," Trump told Fox Business Network in an interview scheduled to air Tuesday night. "Turkey is looking at it very strongly. We are all looking at it together. But Turkey and Saudi Arabia are looking at it very strongly," the president said. "And it depends whether or not the King [Salman] or Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman knew about it, in my opinion. Number one, what happened, but whether or not they knew about it." Bin Salman is the putative leader of Saudi Arabia. "If they knew about it, that would be bad," Trump said. Trump's comments came as a Turkish official told the Associated Press that a police search of that consulate found evidence that Khashoggi was killed there after last being seen entering it Oct. 2. Trump, in a pair of tweets, said Tuesday he had spoken by phone with bin Salman, "who totally denied any knowledge of what happened" in the consulate. Bin Salman was with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in Saudi Arabia during that call. In a statement, Pompeo said he "had direct and candid conversations" with the king and the crown prince, as well as Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir. "My assessment from these meetings is that there is serious commitment to determine all the facts and ensure accountability, including accountability for Saudi Arabia's senior leaders or senior officials," Pompeo added. Pompeo will be traveling to Turkey's capital, Ankara, on Wednesday to discuss Khashoggi's case with senior leaders there. Tweet Trump had spoken by phone on Monday with King Salman, who likewise had denied knowledge of what happened to Khashoggi. After speaking with the king, Trump told reporters that it had sounded like "maybe these could have been rogue killers — who knows?" NBC News reported Tuesday that the Saudis are discussing issuing an explanation that would admit that Khashoggi was killed in the consulate while giving bin Salman so-called plausible deniability by saying he neither ordered the murder nor knew about it. NBC also reported that a person with knowledge of the discussions said the kingdom will claim that rogue operatives killed the journalist during either an interrogation or an attempt to kidnap him and return him to his native Saudi Arabia. Khashoggi, a Washington Post contributor, left Saudi Arabia last year. He had penned articles critical of the country's rulers. Fred Ryan, the Post's publisher and CEO, in a statement Tuesday said, "It has been two weeks since Jamal Khashoggi disappeared in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul."<doc-sep>
President Donald Trump holds a chart of military hardware sales as he welcomes Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, U.S., March 20, 2018. President Donald Trump said Tuesday that "I have no financial interests in Saudi Arabia" — but in fact he has boasted in the past that "I make a lot of money with them." Trump's tweet denying a financial stake in Saudi Arabia comes amid a growing furor over suspicions that the country's rulers ordered the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2. Khashoggi has not been seen since entering the consulate. Tweet The Saudi government is discussing a plan to admit that The Washington Post contributor was killed after entering that building, according to NBC News, which cited multiple sources. But that admission, NBC News said, could include a claim that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman did not order the killing or know if it. Trump's attempt to distance himself from profiting from Saudi Arabia is undercut by a long record showing deals his companies made with that country's government and citizens. "Saudi Arabia, I get along with all of them. They buy apartments from me. They spend $40 million, $50 million," Trump said during a presidential campaign rally in Alabama in August 2015. "Am I supposed to dislike them? I like them very much." At another rally that year, Trump said of the Saudis, "I make a lot of money from them." "They buy all sorts of my stuff. All kinds of toys from Trump. They pay me millions and hundred of millions." Tweet The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from CNBC on Trump's tweet and his past comments about earnings from Saudis. When he first announced his bid for the White House in Trump Tower in New York in 2015, Trump said, "I love the Saudis." "Many are in this building." In another Trump-owned building in the Big Apple, Trump World Tower, the Saudi government had bought an entire floor for $4.5 million in 2001. The New York Daily News reported in 2016 that common charges for that floor paid by the Saudis to Trump's company would have been at least $5.7 million if those charges remained the same as they were when the floor was bought. Thirteen years before that purchase, Trump himself had paid a reported $29 million for a 281-foot yacht, the Nabila, which had been originally built for Adnan Khashoggi, a Saudi arms dealer, but was owned by the Sultan of Brunei at the time of Trump's purchase. Khashoggi, now dead, was a cousin to Jamal Khashoggi. In 1991, while going through what was one of a series of financial squeezes in his career as a real estate mogul and casino operator, Trump sold the big boat, since renamed "Trump Princess," to Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal. And he sold it at a loss: $20 million. More recently, as president, Saudi money has again benefited Trump.