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With Powerful Videos, 9/11 Families Push Congress on JASTA

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Widows of FDNY Rescue 5
Widows of FDNY Rescue 5 Urge Passage of JASTA

As the fifteenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks draws closer, family members of those lost in the attacks are making an emotional appeal to Congress to clear the way for their lawsuit against the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for its alleged financial and logistical support of the hijackers.

In an effort led by the September 11th Advocates—five women who lost loved ones in the attacks—surviving family members and other concerned members of the public are posting videos to a Facebook page and a YouTube channel in which they urge the House of Representatives to promptly pass the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA) when they return from summer recess on Tuesday, September 6.

Adjusting Sovereign Immunity Laws

The bill, which would modify U.S. sovereign immunity law to allow suits against foreign government sponsors of terrorism, passed the Senate by unanimous voice vote. Now, the September 11th Advocates are pressing Speaker of the House Paul Ryan and House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy to schedule a vote on the measure before the 15th anniversary of the attacks.

Kristen Breitweiser
Kristen Breitweiser

“We believe that 15 years is long enough and it would honor our loved ones if they would pass JASTA and allow us to proceed with our path to justice and holding the Saudis accountable for their alleged role,” the group’s Kristen Breitweiser tells 28Pages.org. Breitweiser’s husband, Ron, was killed at the World Trade Center. She and fellow September 11th Advocates Patty Casazza, Monica Gabrielle, Mindy Kleinberg and Lorie Van Auken have been leading advocates for 9/11 transparency.

Though the measure passed the Senate unanimously, Breitweiser says JASTA faces formidable opposition down the stretch. Saudi Arabia has warned Congress and the White House that it may be compelled to divest upwards of a $750 billion dollars in U.S. assets if the measure passes, and President Obama has expressed reluctance to sign the bill if it advances to his desk.

Speaker Ryan and Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad Bin Salman
Speaker Ryan and Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad Bin Salman

“The reality is that the Saudis throw a lot of money around Washington, D.C. and they have a lot of influence. The Saudis have the president and the State Department on their side. I think that’s un-American, I think it’s unpatriotic, I think it’s disgusting, frankly. I don’t know how President Obama will be able to commemorate the 9/11 attacks, by giving a speech or laying a wreath or what have you, when he stabbed the 9/11 families in the back by supporting the Saudis over the 9/11 families,” says Breitweiser.

Civil Suit Could Bring New Evidence to Light

In July, Congress released 28 long-classified pages from a 2002 congressional inquiry into 9/11. The pages—which contained 97 redactions—revealed substantial new clues pointing toward Saudi connections to the hijackers. The Obama administration downplayed those clues, claiming that the 9/11 Commission thoroughly investigated them and found no Saudi government sponsorship of the attacks.

Breitweiser doesn’t buy it. “You’ve got plenty of information out there that the 9/11 Commission did not do a full investigation of the Saudis. Several 9/11 Commissioners themselves acknowledge that. Whether you want to talk about the budget, whether you want to talk about the way (9/11 Commission executive director) Philip Zelikow set it up, it was not a full investigation. That’s one of the reasons why we’re fighting for JASTA, because at least in a court system we’ll have discovery and more than anything we want the American public to see the evidence and see the information and be fully engaged and educated on the issue.”

9/11 Widow Meredith Fry
9/11 Widow Meredith Fry

First, though, they have to persuade the House and Obama to enact JASTA. The video project reinforces that family members and friends of those killed in the attacks are victims of a crime who deserve their day in court. “We wanted to make sure that every 9/11 family member would have their voice heard by every member of Congress, because we think 15 years is long enough and justice delayed is justice denied. We don’t have thousands of dollars to plunk down to sit next to Speaker Ryan at a campaign dinner, but we do have iPhones,” says Breitweiser.

Nearly 15 years after the shocking loss of her husband, her patience is running thin: “I’m really aggravated that my husband and 3,000 people were brutally murdered and my government has no interest in holding anyone accountable for it…I want to know that my husband’s life was not lost in vain.”

Three Ways You Can Help 9/11 Families Get Their Day in Court

Call Speaker of the House Paul Ryan at 202 225-0600 and House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy at 202 225-0400. Urge them to schedule a vote on the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (HR 3815 S2040) before the 9/11 anniversary. Learn more ways to help at PassJASTA.org (which is not affiliated with 28Pages.org).

Post your own short video to the 9/11 Families’ Accountability Video Project. In under a minute, state your name and why you think it’s important to hold Saudi Arabia responsible for its alleged role in the attacks.

Spread awareness on social media. Share the video project’s Facebook page and share this article, too.

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7 Unanswered Questions About the 28 Pages Declassification

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Two weeks ago, after a declassification review led by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), the congressional intelligence committees finally released 28 pages from a joint congressional inquiry that outline a wide variety of connections between Saudi government officials, members of the Saudi royal family, suspected Saudi intelligence operatives and the 9/11 hijackers.

While the pages invite many questions about Saudi ties to the 9/11 attacks and just how thoroughly they were investigated by the 9/11 Commission, there are also many unanswered questions about the declassification itself.

Did President Obama ever read the 28 pages himself?

In 2009, Obama reportedly gave the first of two assurances to 9/11 family members that he would declassify the 28 pages. Seven years later—in April of this year—9/11 families were disappointed when he admitted he still hadn’t bothered to read the pages that were said to link a supposed ally to the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history.

Obama Charlie Rose“I have a sense of what’s in there. But this has been a process which we generally deal with through the intelligence community and Jim Clapper, our director of national intelligence, has been going through to make sure that whatever it is that is released is not gonna compromise some major national security interest of the United States,” the president told Charlie Rose.

The average adult can read 28 pages in about a half hour. One would hope Obama ultimately insisted on reading the pages for himself and didn’t rely on an ODNI recommendation that may have hidden important information not only from the American people but from Obama himself. The importance of his personally reading the pages is underscored by the possibility that, as discussed below, some of the still-redacted information may shed unflattering light on the very intelligence community that was performing the declassification review.

What’s still hidden from view?

Rep. Justin Amash
Rep. Justin Amash

In the last hours before the release, Rep. Walter Jones—Capitol Hill’s foremost advocate for the release of the pages—was assured by an ODNI representative that the remaining redactions would be minimal. However, the public version of the 28 pages has 97 separate redactions, some of a single word or name and many representing multiple paragraphs in sequence.

In a Wednesday Q&A session following remarks at a convention of Young Americans for Liberty, Rep. Justin Amash—who had co-sponsored the House resolution that called for the release of the 28 pages—said he and fellow co-sponsor Thomas Massie intend to read both the public and the unredacted 28 pages side-by-side to see what’s still being kept under wraps.

What are the specific rationales for each redaction?

When declassifications occur under the Freedom of Information Act or the Mandatory Declassification Review process, each redaction is labelled to give the reader an understanding of the reason the information must remain secret. These labels usually don’t offer a lot of specificity, but instead simply refer to a provision of Executive Order 13526, which governs the classification system. For example, a label that says “E.O. 13526, section 1.4(c)” tells us the redaction is related to “intelligence activities (including covert action), intelligence sources or methods, or cryptology.”

Bassnan RedactionIn the declassified 28 pages, however, there are no such labels, leaving us to question if there’s truly a bona fide national security reason behind every redaction. We confess that even a label wouldn’t necessarily remove that doubt, but it would at least represent an attempt by the government to justify each individual decision.

It’s important to note that E.O. 13526 explicitly prohibits classification meant to “conceal violations of law, inefficiency or administrative error,” “prevent embarrassment to a person, organization or agency” or “prevent or delay the release of information that does not require protection in the interest of the national security.” Looking at what we can read in the 28 pages, it’s hard not to conclude that President George W. Bush’s original classification of essentially every word of the 28-page chapter from the congressional inquiry was a violation of these rules.

Do some redactions provide lingering cover for Saudi Arabia?

Bandar McLean VA RedactionOn the day before the 28 pages were released, White House press secretary Josh Earnest seemed to indicate that the U.S.-Saudi relationship would be factored into just how much of the 28 pages the American people would finally be granted permission to read.

“We want to make sure that we factor in the diplomatic equities into a decision like that. So when that process is completed, we will obviously coordinate not just with the (Director of National Intelligence) but also with the Congress to make sure those diplomatic equities are properly factored in,” said Earnest.

Did the intelligence committees make adjustments to the redactions recommended by ODNI?

The release of the 28 pages was preceded by a intelligence community declassification review that President Obama requested in the summer of 2014. The White House portrayed the conclusion of that review as a recommendation from the intelligence community, with the ultimate decision on the release of the 28 pages left in the hands of Congress.

Considering the intelligence committees reportedly released the 28 pages on the same day they received the ODNI recommendation, it seems likely they chose to give full deference to the executive branch and made no adjustments. We’ll have to rely on the judgments of declassification advocates like Jones, Amash and Massie to see if that deference was actually warranted.

Were some of ODNI’s recommendations self-serving?

At a June press conference calling for the release of the 28 pages, Rep. Stephen Lynch seemed to imply that information in the 28 pages would be embarrassing to the intelligence community.

FBI Saudi Threat Redaction“There may be some very embarrassing facts, some very embarrassing moments, and some criticisms on our own intelligence service because of what happened, if all the facts come out,” said Lynch. “I think that those individuals (in the intelligence community) don’t want this to come out. They don’t want the facts to come out because it may reveal terrible, terrible errors on their part and they may bear part of the blame” for failing to prevent the 9/11 attacks.

The released 28 pages do contain some passages that don’t reflect well on the intelligence community, including an admission that, before 9/11, the FBI didn’t focus resources on Saudis in the United States “due to Saudi Arabia’s status as an American ‘ally.'” However, given nearly 100 redactions, we’re left to wonder if some of them are intended to safeguard individual and departmental reputations rather than national security.

What will become of the still-pending Mandatory Declassification Review of the 28 pages?

Separate from the intelligence community’s declassification review, the 28 pages were in a queue for a similar but not identical assessment by the Interagency Security Classification Appeals Panel, or ISCAP. That assessment—called a Mandatory Declassification Review (MDR)—was requested by attorney Tom Julin on behalf of investigative reporters Dan Christensen, Anthony Summers and Robbyn Swan.

ISCAP is dominated by representatives of the intelligence community, so it’s safe to assume it wouldn’t deviate much if at all from the recommendation produced by the ODNI review, and, in any event, the ultimate outcome of a Mandatory Declassification Review is a non-binding recommendation to the president.

While that could be a different president by the time the process is complete, we may find that the MDR, if seen through, would only give us the benefit of some token rationales for each of the remaining redactions.

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Drive to Release 9/11 Docs Gains Strength After 60 Minutes Report

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Things have been moving fast since a momentous 60 Minutes report on the drive to declassify 28 pages on foreign government financing of 9/11. Here’s your personal briefing on all the latest developments.

Declassification Decision in “One or Two Months”

911 wtc aerialBrett Holmgren, senior policy advisor to the assistant to the president for Homeland Security, called former Senator Bob Graham on Tuesday to say a declassification review of the 28 pages will be completed “soon.” Pressed by Graham for a more precise estimate, Holmgren was said to reply “one or two months.”

The review of just 28 pages has been ongoing since the summer of 2014. Last year, a spokesperson for the National Security Council declined to tell us on what day or even in what month the president tasked Director of National Intelligence James Clapper with the review.

House Intelligence Committee Chair Signals Support

Congressman Devin Nunes, chair of the House intelligence committee, said the “benefits of publishing this information would outweigh any potential damage to America’s national security.” House Resolution 14, which urges the president to declassify the 28 pages, has 41 cosponsors and been referred to the intelligence committee, but Nunes has yet to schedule hearings on it.

There’s no new word yet from his counterpart, Richard Burr, who chairs the Senate intelligence committee. According to Carl Hulse in a February 2015 New York Times story, Burr “said he was skeptical of the value of releasing the pages, calling them more of a historical document in a fight against terrorism that has shifted substantially since 2002.” [Call the two chairmen right now and ask them to schedule hearings on H.Res.14 and S.1471. Here’s how.]

Congressman: 28 Pages Present “Clear and Startling Picture”

Congressman Rick Nolan this week renewed his support for declassifying the 28 pages. Nolan, who has read the secret chapter, said the secret chapter of the congressional intelligence report “presents a clear and startling picture of who financed the attacks.”

Nolan, a cosponsor of H.Res.14, also said the 28 pages “detail the probable financing behind the Saudi Arabian terrorists…and they confirm that much of the rhetoric preceding the U.S. attack on Iraq was terribly wrong.”

Graham: 60 Minutes Report Didn’t Tell Full Story of Saudi 9/11 Ties

Dan Christensen
Dan Christensen

In investigative journalist Dan Christensen’s latest piece, Bob Graham acknowledged disappointment that 60 Minutes didn’t include some “other important information about 9/11,” including the story of an undisclosed FBI investigation into a wealthy Saudi family that abruptly abandoned its Sarasota home two weeks before 9/11. It was later established that the family’s home had been visited by future 9/11 hijackers including Mohammed Atta.

Christensen broke the news of that FBI investigation, has requested the declassification of the 28 pages through a process called Mandatory Declassification Review, and is also party to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit seeking the records of the FBI’s Sarasota investigation. His new piece provides an excellent summary of his work to date and the status of his own 9/11 declassification maneuvers: Read it here.

Saudi Government Ridicules 60 Minutes Report

On Sunday evening, the Embassy of Saudi Arabia issued a statement calling the 60 Minutes report “a compilation of myths and erroneous charges that have been thoroughly addressed not just by the Saudi government but also by the 9-11 Commission and the U.S. courts.”

It went on to declare that “the 9/11 Commission confirmed that there is no evidence that the government of Saudi Arabia supported or funded al-Qaeda.” That Saudi assertion had already been contradicted in the 6o Minutes report by 9/11 Commission members, including former Senator Bob Kerrey, who said, “We didn’t have the time, we didn’t have the resources. We certainly didn’t pursue the entire line of inquiry in regard to Saudi Arabia.”

The Saudi embassy described the joint congressional intelligence inquiry that produced the 28 pages as an “infamous” undertaking “which aimed at perpetuating these myths instead of investigating them seriously.”

Conspicuously absent from the Saudi statement was a reiteration of its 2003 request that the 28 pages be released so the kingdom could address its contents in the open.

Victims’ Attorneys Respond to Saudi Statement

On Tuesday, James Kreindler and Sean Carter, who represent 9/11 families and victims, responded to the Saudi critique of the 60 Minutes piece. Among other points, the attorneys countered a Saudi claim that U.S. courts had dismissed the kingdom from the 9/11 suit for “sheer absence of any substantive claims” by noting that the Court of Appeals said the plaintiffs had presented a “wealth of evidence, conscientiously cited to published and unpublished sources.”

Kreindler and Carter said, “In fact, the kingdom has never been willing to address the merits of the families’ claims—it has at every stage hidden behind the defense of sovereign immunity, maintaining that U.S. courts do not have jurisdiction to even consider the families’ evidence that Saudi agencies and employees supported al Qaeda and the hijackers in carrying out the worst terrorist attacks in history on US soil. If the kingdom is as confident as it purports to be about its innocence, there is a simple way to prove it—just withdraw the immunity defense it has been hiding behind for 12 years and answer the charges on the merits.”

Dorgan: American People “Deserve” Declassification

Byron Dorgan, who represented North Dakota in the House and Senate, said, “I am absolutely convinced that the American people deserve and need to see what’s in those pages, because only then will they fully understand that they can connect the dots to the financing and other things. It’s just sad to me that’s been labeled ‘top secret.’”

In 2003, Dorgan twice offered language similar to the current H.Res.14 as an amendment to other bills. His effort was thwarted by procedural objections initiated by Senator Mitch McConnell.

Under Media Pressure, White House Resets Review Expectations

The Obama administration’s assurance to Graham that the review should be completed in “one or two months” came just a day after White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest announced a far less ambitious timetable.

CBS News correspondent Bill Plante kicked off what turned into eight minutes of questioning that centered on how a review of just 28 pages could be nearing the start of its third year, and when the American people could expect it to end. Earnest initially deferred to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Pressed, he said the president “hopes” to see the review completed before his term ends in January 2017.

Pelosi Revives Her Pro-Declassification Stance

In 2003, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi sharply criticized the George W. Bush administration’s decision to declassify the 28 pages—but fell silent on the topic for the first seven years of the Obama administration.

Hours before the 60 Minutes report aired, she issued a statement saying, “I agree with former Senator Bob Graham that these documents should be declassified and made public, and that the Bush Administration’s refusal to do so was a mistake. I have always advocated for providing as much transparency as possible to the American people consistent with protecting our national security.”

One Sloppy Headline Begets Another

As noted above, Lucy Morgan of the Tampa Bay Times was first to report the news of the White House call to former Senator Bob Graham assuring a near-term conclusion to the long-running declassification review of the 28 pages. Morgan was on the money, but the editor who penned her headline wasn’t: The story’s title declared that the declassification is “underway.”

Other outlets, racing to follow Morgan’s scoop, took their cue from the headline and doubled down on the mischaracterization. The Daily Beast’s headline said, “Senator Graham: 9/11 Declassification Happening,” and the brief item beneath it said the White House told Graham “the papers are set to be released to the public.” Slate erred in much the same way but corrected it after feedback from a 28 pages activist. The Daily Beast corrected the headline but left the over-exuberant story intact.

To its great credit, however, the Tampa Bay Times on Monday issued an editorial urging the release of the 28 pages.

Lehman Quote Goes Unscrutinized

In our report on the historic 60 Minutes segment, we noted that CBS inexplicably relegated the most intriguing statement in any of its interviews to a web-only extra feature. Former Secretary of the Navy John Lehman, asked if the 28 pages include specific names, said, “Yes. The average intelligent watcher of 60 Minutes would recognize them instantly.”

While we have yet to see any other outlets analyze Lehman’s remark, here’s some speculation from the world of social media:

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On 60 Minutes, A Compelling Case for Releasing 28 Pages on 9/11

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Former Sen. Bob Graham
Former Sen. Bob Graham

The movement to declassify 28 pages on foreign government ties to 9/11 received its highest-profile exposure to date tonight, as 60 Minutes aired a report that featured insights from several former officials who are familiar with what the 28 pages contain—and believe the information should be public.

Even before it aired, Steve Kroft’s report had already had an impact: This afternoon, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi released a statement reviving her long-dormant stance that the pages should be declassified.

The 28 pages are an entire chapter in the 838-page report of a joint House-Senate intelligence inquiry into 9/11 conducted in 2002. They were redacted by the George W. Bush administration over the objection of many who served on the inquiry, and of 46 senators who signed a 2003 letter to Bush demanding the release of the pages to the public. Among the signatories: future Secretaries of State Hillary Clinton and John Kerry and future Vice President Joe Biden.

“Substantial” Saudi Support for 9/11 Terrorists

While none of the individuals Kroft spoke to disclosed any specifics about their contents, former Senator Bob Graham, who co-chaired the inquiry, told Kroft he believes Saudi Arabia “substantially” supported the 19 hijackers. Asked if that support came from the government, wealthy individuals or charities, Graham said, “All of the above.”

Kroft elicited a particularly intriguing statement that, surprisingly, wasn’t included in the prime time segment, but can be found in an online “60 Minutes Overtime” segment. Asked if the 28 pages include specific names, former Secretary of the Navy John Lehman said, “Yes. The average intelligent watcher of 60 Minutes would recognize them instantly.”

Perhaps the strongest unclassified indication of Saudi support of the 9/11 hijackers was found in San Diego, where future 9/11 hijackers Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Midhar received cash, assistance with lodging and other help from Omar al-Bayoumi, who is widely believed to have been an operative for the Kingdom.

Secure U.S. Capitol Facility That Houses the 28 Pages
Secure U.S. Capitol Facility That Houses the 28 Pages

Though they weren’t covered in the 60 Minutes segment, there are unanswered questions—and more government resistance to transparency—concerning an FBI investigation of a wealthy Saudi family that appeared to have multiple contacts with future 9/11 hijackers including Mohammed Atta from their home in Sarasota. The family abandoned the residence in haste just days before the attacks.

Investigative journalists have filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit to obtain the FBI’s records of its investigation of the Sarasota Saudis. The FBI initially said it had no files on it; a federal judge is now reviewing more than 80,000 pages the FBI ultimately produced.

Along with the secrecy of the 28 pages, the reluctance of the government to share the Florida files is part of what Graham previously called “a pervasive pattern of covering up the role of Saudi Arabia in 9/11, by all of the agencies of the federal government which have access to information that might illuminate Saudi Arabia’s role in 9/11.”

Roemer TenetProponents of the release of the 28 pages ostensibly have a surprising ally: Saudi Arabia itself. As former Congressman and 9/11 Commission member Tim Roemer told Kroft, “Look, the Saudis have even said they’re for declassifying it.”

While it’s true that Saudi Arabia, in the summer of 2003, formally requested that the Bush administration declassify the 28 pages, the public plea may have been offered with confidence—or perhaps even an assurance—that the White House would deny it. In 2014, Congressman Stephen Lynch told MNSBC’s Chris Hayes, “I think there might be some duplicity on the part of the Saudis in terms of them desiring this to be disclosed.”

Protecting Saudi Arabia…At What Cost?

Though Bush attributed the classification of the 28 pages to a need to protect intelligence “sources and methods,” Lehman forcefully refuted the idea that the secrecy is justified.

Referring to himself and other former officials who’ve read the 28 pages and favor their release, Lehman said, “We’re not a bunch of rubes that rode into Washington for this commission….we’ve seen fire and we’ve seen rain and the politics of national security. We all have dealt for our careers in highly classified and compartmentalized in every aspect of security. We know when something shouldn’t be declassified….those 28 pages in no way fall into that category.”

In his report, Kroft said, “Graham and others believe the Saudi role has been soft-pedaled to protect a delicate relationship with a complicated kindgom where the rulers, royalty, riches and religion are deeply intertwined in its institutions.”

There was no mention of a more specific interest Bush may have been protecting when he redacted the pages: His family’s close, multi-generational ties to the Saudi royals, ties that are deeply personal and financial. Likewise missing was commentary on the apparent double-standard applied as the U.S. government identified friend and foe in the nascent “war on terror.”

Graham has previously asserted that, by covering up Saudi ties to the worst terror attack on U.S. soil, the Bush and Obama administrations have only encouraged their continued sponsorship of extremism and proliferation of the ultra-conservative form of Islam called Wahhabism.

Saudi FlagClassified State Department documents published on Wikileaks acknowledge Saudi support for extremism enduring well beyond 2001. “Saudi Arabia remains a critical financial support base for al-Qaida, the Taliban, LeT and other terrorist groups,” declared then-Secretary of State Clinton in a 2009 cable. “Donors in Saudi Arabia constitute the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide.”

Kroft also spoke with Jim Kreindler and Sean Carter, attorneys representing families of 9/11 victims suing the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for its alleged financial and logistical support of the 9/11 hijackers. In September, a federal judge dropped Saudi Arabia from that suit for lack of evidence.

Though that decision is being appealed, the case underscores why the press to release of the 28 pages isn’t a mere exercise in updating the history of that pivotal event.

“It’s been difficult for us because, for many years, we weren’t getting the kind of openness and cooperation that we think our government owes to the American people, particularly the families of people who were murdered,” said Kreindler.

In proclaiming its innocence, the Saudi government has routinely pointed to a sentence from the report of the 9/11 Commission: “We have found no evidence that the Saudi government as an institution or senior Saudi officials individually funded the organization.”

Carter said the sentence was written with a precision that deliberately narrowed its meaning: “They conspicuously leave open the potential that they found evidence that people who were officials that they did not regard as official had done so.”

The 9/11 Commission’s Lehman agreed: “It’s not an exoneration.”

Lehman’s fellow commission member and former Senator Bob Kerrey told Kroft the 9/11 Commission wasn’t able to fully examine the leads found in the 28 pages. “We didn’t have the time, we didn’t have the resoures. We certainly didn’t pursue the entire line of inquiry in regard to Saudi Arabia.”

President Obama to Visit Saudi Arabia Next Week

The publicity around the 28 pages and allegations that a country often described as a U.S. ally aided and abetted the 9/11 hijackers comes at particularly sensitive time: President Obama will visit the kingdom on April 21.

Ronald Breitweiser: Killed on 9/11
Ron Breitweiser

The close U.S.-Saudi relationship sparks anger in many of those who lost loved ones on September 11, among them, Kristen Breitweiser, whose husband, Ron, worked in the World Trade Center.

Anticipating the president’s upcoming trip, Breitweiser wrote, “I only wish I could adequately relay the disgust I have in my heart when I anticipate having to see my president smiling, laughing, and joking with his ‘special Saudi friends’ — the very same people who I believe underwrote the murder of my husband and nearly 3,000 others.”

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60 Minutes to Report on 28 Pages Said to Link 9/11, Saudi Arabia

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60-minutesThe drive to declassify 28 pages from a congressional intelligence inquiry that detail specific indications of foreign government support of the 9/11 hijackers is about to be put under a powerful spotlight, as 60 Minutes will air a segment on the topic this Sunday, April 10 at 7 pm ET/PT.

According to the CBS News preview of the story, Steve Kroft interviewed former senator Bob Graham, former congressman and CIA director Porter Goss, former 9/11 Commission members Bob Kerrey and John Lehman, lawyers representing 9/11 family members suing Saudi Arabia and former congressman Tim Roemer, who served on both the inquiry that produced the 28 pages and the 9/11 Commission that followed that inquiry.

Report to Air on Eve of Obama Visit to Saudi Arabia

The high-profile 60 Minutes segment—which is positioned for high viewership as it follows coverage of the Masters Tournament—comes at a particularly sensitive time for the White House, as the president will visit Saudi Arabia on April 21. 9/11 family members say that, in 2009 and 2011, Obama assured them he would declassify the 28 pages, yet that promise has gone unfulfilled.

Former Senator Bob Graham
Former Senator Bob Graham

Graham, who co-chaired the inquiry that wrote the 28 pages, has said, “The 28 pages primarily relate to who financed 9/11 and they point a very strong finger at Saudi Arabia as being the principal financier.” He has also said that, by shielding Saudi Arabia from scrutiny of its sponsorship of Sunni extremism, the continued classification has encouraged their continued sponsorship and paved the way for the rise of ISIS.

Congressman Thomas Massie described the experience of reading the pages as “shocking” and said, “I had to stop every couple pages and…try to rearrange my understanding of history. It challenges you to rethink everything.”

Congressmen Walter Jones, Stephen Lynch and Massie are leading an effort in the U.S. House of Representatives to declassify the 28 pages: Their House Resolution 14, which urges the president to declassify the material, has 41 cosponsors. A similar measure, Senate Bill 1471, was introduced by Senators Rand Paul and Ron Wyden and cosponsored by Kirsten Gillibrand.

Review of 28 Pages Nears Its Third Year

In response to heightened media attention to the 28 pages in September 2014, the White House said the president, earlier that summer, tasked Director of National Intelligence James Clapper with conducting an intelligence community review of the 28 pages for potential declassification.

Inexplicably, and with essentially no follow-up by national media to date, that review of just 28 pages has already taken far longer than the entire, unprecedented congressional inquiry that produced them. As we reported here last summer, in just six months the 2002 inquiry:

  • Reviewed nearly a half million pages of documents from intelligence agencies and other sources
  • Conducted roughly 300 interviews
  • Participated in briefings and panel discussions involving about 600 people from the intelligence community, other government departments, state and local entities, foreign government representatives and other individuals
  • Held 13 closed-door sessions and nine public hearings
  • Dueled with intelligence agencies and the White House over many aspects of the inquiry’s undertaking, including requests for information and the format of the final report
  • Wrote, edited and revised an 838-page report on the inquiry’s findings

A separate evaluation, under a process called Mandatory Declassification Review, was initiated in 2014 by an attorney representing investigative journalists Dan Christensen, Anthony Summers and Robbyn Swan. Like the review requested by the president, it is still pending as the Obama administration nears its final months.

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