And now Trump has issued his most telling tell: repeatedly noting that Saudi Arabia denies any role in Khashoggi’s disappearance.

Twice in recent days, Trump has made a point to emphasize that the Saudis claim complete innocence.

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“It’s being looked at very, very strongly, and we would be very upset and angry if that were the case,” Trump told CBS News’s “60 Minutes” in an interview that aired Sunday night, referring to the potential Saudi role in the disappearance. “As of this moment, they deny it. And deny it vehemently. Could it be them? Yes.”

After some crosstalk with Lesley Stahl, Trump said it again: “They deny it. They deny it every way you can imagine.”

The morning after the interview aired, Trump again pointed out Saudi Arabia’s denial, while slipping in yet again that Khashoggi isn’t an American citizen.

“Just spoke to the King of Saudi Arabia who denies any knowledge of whatever may have happened ‘to our Saudi Arabian citizen,’ ” Trump tweeted.

The White House has said that Trump is merely relaying Saudi Arabia’s denials. But to accept that, you would have to be willfully blind to history.

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Over and over again, Trump has used supposedly ironclad denials to find a way to believe things he wants to believe — or at least avoid punitive actions.

He has done it many times with Vladimir Putin’s denials of Russian interference in the 2016 election:

Trump did it with the sexual misconduct allegations against Roy Moore in the U.S. Senate race in Alabama:

And the abuse allegations against former senior White House aide Rob Porter:

And allegations against Paul Manafort, a former Trump campaign manager:

And, most recently, the White House cited Brett M. Kavanaugh’s denial in defending him during the fight to confirm him as a Supreme Court justice:

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“On Friday, Judge Kavanaugh ‘categorically and unequivocally’ denied this allegation . This has not changed. Judge Kavanaugh and the White House both stand by that statement.”

In each of these cases, Trump made it abundantly clear where he stood. He wanted Moore elected and Kavanaugh confirmed to the Supreme Court. Trump wanted to believe Manafort was innocent, because that was (and now is, in light of Manafort’s decision to flip) a major liability for him. He didn’t want to fire Porter, and he has even reportedly mused about bringing him back.

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Trump may not have always gotten what he wanted, but his reliance upon these denials — and repeated allusions to just how “strong,” “total” and absolute they were — betrayed his true feelings. It was his way of injecting enough plausible deniability into a matter to give him an excuse to stand by his man. And without fail, he did.

Nowhere has this been as pronounced as it has with Putin. On at least half a dozen occasions, Trump has referred to the strength of Putin’s denials. Trump has intermittently been forced to say that he believes his own intelligence community’s conclusions about Russian election interference, but he always reverts to casting doubt about that. He even did it again Sunday night.

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And the Russia example is applicable to the Khashoggi situation in another way. While Trump has clearly retained doubts about Russian interference, he has also taken actions that are pretty tough on Russia. He signed a sanctions bill. He expelled Russian diplomats over former double agent Sergei Skripal’s poisoning in Britain.

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But those were actions that people around Trump, Congress and the political realities of the situations pressed him to take. Trump has shown in just about each case that he didn’t like that he had to get tough with Russia but was forced to do it anyway. He didn’t want to sign off on the sanctions and said so publicly, but he risked the embarrassment of having a veto overridden. He even reportedly resisted retaliating over Skripal’s poisoning.

This, ultimately, may be what happens with Khashoggi, depending on pressure from his aides, Congress and the international community. The weight of the situation could just be that severe.