Pressure on Mnuchin rises as top CEOs pull out of Saudi conference

On Sunday, a Treasury Department spokesman told CNN, "We will be evaluating the information that comes out this week."

Mnuchin has, over the past week, become the face of the Trump Administration's unwillingness to back away from Riyadh amid rising international attention to the case of Jamal Khashoggi, who hasn't been seen since going into the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2.

Executive exodus: Jamie Dimon and other top CEOs quit Saudi conference

Turkish authorities claim to have evidence Khashoggi was killed inside the building, a claim the Saudis strenuously deny. Saudi Arabia has given Turkey permission to search its Istanbul consulate Monday afternoon, a Turkish diplomatic source told CNN.

"Mnuchin will make up his mind as the week progresses and as new information surfaces," White House Economic Advisor Larry Kudlow said Sunday on ABC's This Week.

President Donald Trump has responded to the issue with some hesitation.

"There's something really terrible and disgusting about that, if that were the case. So we're going to have to see," Trump said in a "60 Minutes" interview broadcast Sunday. "We're going to get to the bottom of it and there will be severe punishment."

On Monday, Trump said he will send Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to discuss the situation with Saudi's King Salman.

Speakers and sponsors have been abandoning the event in growing numbers.

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, Ford Executive Chairman Bill Ford, and Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi are some of the high-profile names who will no longer be attending the conference. Blackrock CEO Larry Fink and Stephen Schwarzman, the CEO of investment firm Blackstone, have also withdrawn.

Trump's Saudi decision could prompt Congress to rein in his foreign policy

Kai-Fu Lee, a former Google executive who was on the list of speakers, will no longer participate, a spokesperson for his investment fund, Sinovation Ventures, told CNN on Monday.

However, International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde told reporters Saturday at the IMF's annual meeting in Indonesia she still planned to go but would be paying close attention to new information about Khashoggi's disappearance.

Mnuchin has repeatedly been called on to say whether he'd still attend the summit, officially called the Future Investment Initiative. The summit is part of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's efforts to modernize the country's economy and wean it off its dependence on oil.

Republican Senator Marco Rubio told CNN on Sunday that he thinks Mnuchin should not go to the conference.

"I don't think any of our government officials should be going and pretending it's business as usual until we know exactly what's happened here," Rubio said.

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