President Biden did not want to get booed by 9/11 family members at this year’s September 11th remembrance ceremony at the Memorial in New York City, as 1,800 family members and first responders sent him a letter saying he should not attend.
In 2002, a group of family members filed suit against the Saudi government in federal court. It took 15 years and Congress amending the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act to get the lawsuit to the discovery phase. Yet the CIA, FBI, National Security Council, and the entire intelligence community continued to fight the declassification of the FBI’s investigation of the Saudi connections to the plot. And the 9/11 Commission’s records of FBI interviews and documents, its interviews of Bill Clinton, George Bush, Richard Cheney, senior officials in both of those administrations, and other key Commission documents all remain classified.
On September 3, Biden signed an Executive Order directing the FBI to review for declassification its investigation of the Saudi connections, to be completed within six months. The accompanying press statement, in part, reads:
"When I ran for president, I made a commitment to ensuring transparency regarding the declassification of documents on the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on America," Biden said in a statement. "As we approach the 20th anniversary of that tragic day, I am honoring that commitment."
The FBI then released tidbits of information. (More in a moment about this.)
Biden attended and nary a protest was seen, as 9/11 family members are a respectful lot. We might have booed Bush 43 had he bounced that first pitch to Derek Jeter. Yet we are repulsed at the thought of protests at formal remembrances of those we lost.
Is another president deceiving America about transparency? Bush fought declassification at every turn. Obama stifled inquiries – except for those into detainee interrogations. Just before he left office, Congress overrode his veto of JASTA legislation which allowed the lawsuit against the Saudi government to go forward. Trump’s DoJ “accidentally” revealed one name, Musaed Ahmed al-Jarrah, which had been under the lawsuit judge’s protective order.
So far, with one exception, Biden’s promises amount to little. Beyond what had previously been disclosed, redactions in the FBI’s subsequent release make it impossible for the public to discern who assisted who or evaluate how they may have aided the 9/11 attack plot.
Indeed, the release further discredits the statements to investigators made by previously identified Saudis. And the release did reveal an already identified Saudi diplomat in California, Fahad al-Thumairy, received a telephone call from someone in Malaysia shortly before two future 9/11 hijackers arrived in Los Angeles in January of 2000. Yet the FBI did not identify the caller in Malaysia or their connections, if known, to terrorism.
The FBI identified a previously unknown person, Mutaeb al-Sudairy, a religious official assigned to the Saudi Embassy in Washington. Shortly before two of the hijackers arrived in Los Angeles, while they resided in Omar al-Bayoumi’s apartment in San Diego, and soon thereafter, Bayoumi made five calls to Sudairy. The latter lived in an apartment in Virginia which two of the hijackers later occupied.
It has long been publicly known that CIA managers, in 2000, barred FBI liaison officers from telling FBI HQs what they had read in the CIA’s files about al Qaeda operatives inside the United States. They were kept from informing the FBI that: in January 2000, the CIA had covertly copied future 9/11 hijacker’s al-Mihdhar’s open-ended visa to enter America; he was then observed and photographed in Malaysia with other known al Qaeda to include future hijacker al-Hazmi; and the latter had landed in Los Angeles, from Thailand, on January 15, 2000. (After 9/11, it was confirmed that Mihdhar arrived aboard the same flight.) Mihdhar, Hazmi, and Flight 77 terrorist pilot Hani Hanjour were who the “Saudi connection” assisted.
Declassifying the 9/11 Commission's staff records would send a strong signal to the judge conducting the lawsuit that our government will no longer hide the support provided to terrorist organizations by foreign government officials, “friend” or foe.
One key 9/11 Commission document is about to be released. Next week, the National Security Council will complete its declassification review of notes created during the April 29, 2004, interview of President Bush and Vice President Cheney conducted by all ten 9/11 Commissioners, led by Commission Chair Thomas Kean and Vice Chair Lee Hamilton. The National Archives had it, yet the NSC delayed its declassification for over a decade.
But the stonewalling continues.
On May 18, the Public Interest Declassification Board at the National Archives met online. Guest presenters 9/11 Commissioner Jamie Gorelick and Commission Executive Director Philip Zelikow strongly recommended a short list of staff documents including a 7000-word detailed summary, authored by Zelikow with help from Gorelick, of 300-plus Presidential Daily Briefs and other high-level intelligence documents about al Qaeda that were provided to Presidents Clinton and Bush before 9/11.
This is a vital summary of the top pre-9/11 intelligence.
Zelikow told the PIDB that it could have been declassified long ago. On August 11, the PIDB announced its letter to President Biden in which they recommended that it should be declassified.
Since 2011, I have filed FOIAs and Mandatory Declassification Requests in search of the summary of the PDBs. The National Archives, NSC, and CIA all replied they did not have it. In 2018, the G.W. Bush Library stated they had not found it in their collection. In 2019, I filed a FOIA with the library requesting a detailed search for the summary.
They replied that their search “may be completed in approximately 12 years.”
Then, on September 27, 2021, the library emailed me that they had found what they believe is the document, I could now file a MDR for it (which I did), and my request would be “piggy backed” onto an MDR for it they received soon after the PIDB’s May 18 online meeting.
However, only now will the NSC begin to task the intelligence agencies to review the Commission’s summary for declassification. This review, they warned, will “likely take many months to complete.”
How many more presidents will slow-roll the 9/11 families, first responders, and all of the American people, and then show up at Ground Zero without getting booed?
Biden should expand his declassification EO to include the 9/11 Commission’s files and then prove his campaign promise wasn’t just more political rhetoric.
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