BEIRUT, Lebanon — Saudi Arabia threatened five of its agents with the death penalty on Thursday for killing the dissident Jamal Khashoggi, as the kingdom changed its story, again, about how the crime was committed and continued to try to distance its de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, from any responsibility.

Announcing an update on the kingdom’s own investigation, the public prosecutor portrayed the killing of Mr. Khashoggi at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul as an improvised decision taken at the last minute by a team that had been dispatched there with orders to retrieve him.

While the prosecutor’s report did not name any of the suspects, the leader of the team that confronted Mr. Khashoggi at the consulate was Maher Abdulaziz Mutreb, who often traveled with him abroad, according to a Saudi official familiar with the investigation.

As Ms. Pelosi, the House Democratic leader, insisted on Thursday that she had enough support for the speakership, some of her newly elected female colleagues dismissed the notion that it was paramount to have a woman at the top. And some of her male critics — mindful of the optics of dumping the highest-ranking woman in American political history — began floating the names of other women to replace her.

“There’s plenty of really competent females that we can replace her with,” Representative Tim Ryan of Ohio, one of Ms. Pelosi’s leading critics, told reporters on Wednesday, listing the names of several. Among them was Representative Marcia Fudge of Ohio, a former chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus, who now says she is contemplating a run.

Thursday’s explanation closely echoed a previous Saudi account — portraying the killing as a rendition gone wrong — that President Trump had derided as

As Ms. Pelosi, the House Democratic leader, insisted on Thursday that she had enough support for the speakership, some of her newly elected female colleagues dismissed the notion that it was paramount to have a woman at the top. And some of her male critics — mindful of the optics of dumping the highest-ranking woman in American political history — began floating the names of other women to replace her.

“There’s plenty of really competent females that we can replace her with,” Representative Tim Ryan of Ohio, one of Ms. Pelosi’s leading critics, told reporters on Wednesday, listing the names of several. Among them was Representative Marcia Fudge of Ohio, a former chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus, who now says she is contemplating a run.