U.S. military veterans say Qorvis Communications tricked them into unknowingly lobbying on behalf of Saudi Arabia
Campaign against law enabling 9/11 victims to sue kingdom used unregistered agents, failed to provide required disclosures
By Brian P. McGlinchey
In March 2017, a group of 9/11 families presented the Department of Justice with 17 pages of detailed allegations that Qorvis Communications had, on behalf of Saudi Arabia, conducted a lobbying campaign against the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA) characterized by extensive violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). Continue reading →
Author of 9/11’s famed “Phoenix Memo” was told White House’s pursuit of warm relations with kingdom comes first
Former Senate intelligence chair Bob Graham calls FBI’s action “a fundamental assault on the principle of democracy”
By Brian P. McGlinchey
Kenneth Williams
A retired FBI counterterrorism agent with a notable role in the story of 9/11 says the FBI’s Office of the General Counsel told him not to cooperate with attorneys representing 9/11 victims in their suit against the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia because it could harm U.S.-Saudi relations.
In an exclusive interview with 28Pages.org, Kenneth Williams, author of an ignored July 2001 memo warning that Osama bin Laden may be training pilots in the United States, explains why he has now decided to ignore the FBI’s instructions, Continue reading →
Co-chair of congressional inquiry into 9/11 aids investigative journalist’s FOIA case against FBI
At a federal court hearing in Miami on Tuesday, former U.S. senator and Florida governor Bob Graham was seated at the plaintiff’s table in a case pitting a journalist against the FBI in a fight for transparency about the bureau’s investigation of a Saudi family that suddenly left its upscale Sarasota home shortly before the 9/11 attacks. Continue reading →
Clinton with Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal
A 2014 email released by Wikileaks, in which Hillary Clinton asserted that the governments of Saudi Arabia and Qatar were directly aiding ISIS and other extremist groups, may help stave off a Saudi lobbying effort aimed at reversing a newly-enacted law giving 9/11 families the power to sue the kingdom.
The email, sent to Clinton presidential campaign chairman John Podesta, lays out an assessment of the situation in Syria and Iraq and includes various policy prescriptions.
One of them leveled a pointed indictment at Saudi Arabia: “We need to use our diplomatic and more traditional intelligence assets to bring pressure on the governments of Qatar and Saudi Arabia, which are providing clandestine financial and logistic support to ISIL and other radical Sunni groups in the region.” (ISIL is an abbreviation for Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant—an alternative reference for ISIS, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.)
As Daily Caller’s Alex Pfeiffer noted in breaking the story, the email’s format matches previously revealed intelligence reports prepared for Clinton by her confidante Sidney Blumenthal. Though it may have been drafted by Blumenthal, Clinton’s sharing of the material without attribution seemingly signals her embrace of its contents, including the damning assertion about Saudi Arabia.
This isn’t the first time Wikileaks has revealed a Clinton assertion of ties between Saudi Arabia and terrorism. In a 2009 cable, then-Secretary of State Clinton said “donors in Saudi Arabia constitute the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide.”
The newly-released email is particularly significant because, rather than vaguely implicating unidentified “donors” that may or may not include individual members of the royal family acting independently, it specifically points a finger of guilt at the Saudi government itself.
Former Senator Bob Graham
The email validates former Senator Bob Graham’s previous assertions that, by classifying Saudi links to the 9/11 attacks, the U.S. government helped pave the way for the rise of ISIS.
“I believe that the failure to shine a full light on Saudi actions and particularly its involvement in 9/11 has contributed to the Saudi ability to continue to engage in actions that are damaging to the US—and in particular their support for ISIS,” Graham told Patrick Cockburn in a 2014 interview.
Strengthening the Case for JASTA
The Clinton email leak comes just a few weeks after the enactment of the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA), which amended the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) in a way that enables 9/11 family members and victims to sue the Saudi government for its alleged financial and logistical support of the hijackers.
President Obama vetoed the bill and, though his veto was overwhelmingly overridden, JASTA supporters are bracing for a determined Saudi counterattack in the lame duck session of Congress. That counterattack will likely take the form of a new alteration of FSIA to reverse some or all of JASTA’s effect.
Though JASTA explicitly limits its scope to terrorism and only applies to governments, opponents—under heavy pressure from Saudi Arabia and the U.S. intelligence community—are claiming JASTA will leave individual U.S. military service members vulnerable to lawsuits filed abroad if foreign governments modify their own sovereign immunity laws in reciprocation.
In a statement issued after Obama’s veto, attorneys for 9/11 families said “a reciprocal statute could not permit claims against individual U.S. officials, employees or military personnel, as JASTA prohibits such actions…the inescapable conclusion is that the president’s rationale for opposing JASTA has nothing to do with JASTA itself.”
Former Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Endorses Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act
Former Senator Bob Graham
In an appearance this morning at the National Press Club, former Senate intelligence committee chairman Bob Graham said the July release of 28 pages from a 2002 congressional inquiry was just the first step toward gaining full transparency on the U.S. government’s investigation of Saudi links to the 9/11 attacks.
“This is removing the cork from the bottle,” said Graham. “There is a significant amount of information which, like the 28 pages, has been withheld and it was necessary to get this first block of material to the public in order to build the support that will be necessary for the balance of the material to flow.”
Pattern of “Aggressive Deception”
Among the countless documents still hidden from public view are those relating to the FBI’s investigation of a wealthy, well-connected Saudi family in Sarasota that reportedly had many contacts with future 9/11 attackers before suddenly vacating its home days before the attacks.
Sarasota Home Vacated by Wealthy Saudi Family Before 9/11
The FBI initially denied that it had any documentation of that investigation. When pressed with a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, the bureau surrendered 80,000 pages of documents to a federal judge who is currently reviewing them for potential release.
Graham characterized the FBI as moving beyond a cover-up, which he defined as a passive withholding of information, to “aggressive deception” in which “they rewrote the narrative,” making public declarations that are at odds with what’s contained in the bureau’s still-secret documents.
Noting that there were several al Qaeda cells around the country, Graham called for the release of still-classified files from the investigations of hijackers based in New Jersey and Virginia, as well as additional material from the 9/11 Commission.
Those commission documents are vital to helping the American public understand the apparent disconnect between the commission’s conclusions that it found no evidence of Saudi government support of the 9/11 plotters and disturbing declarations in the newly-released 28 pages—including revelations that an al Qaeda operative in Pakistan had an unlisted phone number associated with Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan’s Aspen, Colorado mansion, as well as the phone number of a bodyguard at the Saudi embassy in Washington, D.C.
Pending Legislation Would Help Cause of Transparency
Graham also endorsed the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA), which would modify the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act in a way that would clear the path for 9/11 families to sue the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for its alleged links to the attacks.
Graham positioned the lawsuit as a critical avenue of transparency. Noting that he was familiar with much of the research that plaintiffs’ attorneys had already conducted, Graham said “of all the channels of information about the Saudi role, what’s going to come out in that litigation—if it is allowed to occur because the sovereign immunity defense has been modified—will be astounding.”
Speaker of the House Ryan
JASTA passed the Senate unanimously in May, and activist 9/11 family members and victims are pressing Speaker of the House Paul Ryan to schedule a vote immediately upon Congress’s return from summer recess next week. The activists’ latest efforts include emotionally impactful videos recorded by those directly and indirectly affected by the attacks, as well as a letter from the children of many who were slain in the attacks.
Graham said his daughter, Florida Congresswoman Gwen Graham, has observed an increase in constituent support for JASTA following the release of the 28 pages, adding, “I hope that (the House) will act during this session, ideally before the fifteenth anniversary of 9/11.”
The Saudi government promptly responded to Graham’s remarks, declaring in a press release its “strong disappointment at Senator Graham’s continued advocacy of the idea that the government of Saudi Arabia bore responsibility for the attacks of September 11, 2001.”
Call Speaker of the House Paul Ryan at 202-225-0600 and ask him to schedule a vote on JASTA before 9/11
In March 2017, a group of 9/11 families presented the Department of Justice with 17 pages of detailed allegations that Qorvis Communications had, on behalf of Saudi Arabia, conducted a lobbying campaign against the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA) characterized by extensive violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). Continue reading 
As Daily Caller’s Alex Pfeiffer noted in breaking 
28Pages.org 