Bob Graham: FBI Is Covering up Saudi Connection to 9/11

“I think the American people deserve to know the truth of what has happened in their name.” – former Senator Bob Graham

The FBI is whitewashing a shadowy Saudi role in the September 11 attacks, says a former US Senator.

From the New York Post:

Former Democratic Sen. Bob Graham, who in 2002 chaired the congressional Joint Inquiry into 9/11, maintains the FBI is covering up a Saudi support cell in Sarasota for the hijackers. He says the al-Hijjis’ “urgent” pre-9/11 exit suggests “someone may have tipped them off” about the coming attacks.

Graham has been working with a 14-member group in Congress to urge President Obama to declassify 28 pages of the final report of his inquiry which were originally redacted, wholesale, by President George W. Bush.

“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 said, adding, “I am speaking of the kingdom,” or government, of Saudi Arabia, not just wealthy individual Saudi donors.

Approximately two weeks before the 9/11 attacks, a prominent family abandoned their home in Sarasota, Florida without notifying anyone. Neighbors were suspicious and contacted the FBI.

An investigation into the family was opened, and it was found that at least one “family member” trained at the same flight school as some of the 9/11 hijackers in nearby Venice:

The investigation into the prominent Saudi family’s ties to the hijackers started on Sept. 19, 2001, and remained active for several years. It was led by the FBI’s Tampa field office but also involved the bureau’s field offices in New York and Washington, and also the Southwest Florida Domestic Security Task Force.

Agents identified persons of interest in the case, establishing their ties to other terrorists, sympathies with Osama bin Laden and anti-American remarks. They looked into their bank accounts, colleges and places of employment. They tracked at least one suspect’s re-entry into the US.

The Saudi family’s connection to 9/11 was a significant part of the attack’s investigation.

But that information was never shared with Congress, and it wasn’t mentioned in the 9/11 Commission Report.

The FBI insists that the family had nothing to do with the attacks, and that an initial report that claimed there were “many connections” between the family and terrorists was written by a special agent who, under bureau questioning, “was unable to provide any basis for the contents of the document or explain why he wrote it as he did.”

The possible Saudi connection is back in the spotlight again because of claims made by victims’ families in a federal court in New York that Saudi Arabia was responsible for aiding the 9/11 hijackers and because of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed against the FBI in Florida:

In sworn statements in the two cases, Mr. Graham has said there was evidence of support from the Saudi government for the terrorists. He also says the F.B.I. withheld from his inquiry, as well as a subsequent one, the fact that the bureau had investigated a Saudi family in Sarasota, Fla., and had found multiple contacts between it and the hijackers training nearby until the family fled just before the attacks. (source)

“One thing that irritates me is that the F.B.I. has gone beyond just covering up, trying to avoid disclosure, into what I call aggressive deception,” Graham told the New York Times.

A federal judge in Florida is reviewing an estimated 80,000 documents related to the FOIA inquiry to determine what should remain classified and what should be released. Graham suggested that the documents could include photos and records of cars linked to the hijackers entering the gated community where the Sarasota family lived.

Thomas Julin, the attorney who filed the FOIA lawsuit, told the Miami Herald, “The report provides no plausible explanation for the contradiction between the FBI’s current claim that it found nothing and its 2002 memo finding ‘many connections’ between the Sarasota family and the 9/11 terrorists.”

More from the New York Post:

Sources who have read the censored Saudi section say it cites CIA and FBI case files that directly implicate officials of the Saudi Embassy in Washington and its consulate in Los Angeles in the attacks — which, if true, would make 9/11 not just an act of terrorism, but an act of war by a foreign government. The section allegedly identifies high-level Saudi officials and intelligence agents by name, and details their financial transactions and other dealings with the San Diego hijackers. It zeroes in on the Islamic Affairs Department of the Saudi Embassy, among other Saudi entities.

Graham said he’s not going to give up on his efforts to force the government to disclose the 28 classified pages of the congressional inquiry as well as the FBI documents about the investigation of the Saudi family in Florida:

“No. 1, I think the American people deserve to know the truth of what has happened in their name. No. 2 is justice for these family members who have suffered such loss and thus far have been frustrated largely by the U.S. government in their efforts to get some compensation.”

He told the Post:

“This is 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.”

Graham also said he wants to ensure that any 9/11 co-conspirators are held accountable:

To me, the most simple, unanswered question of 9/11 is, did the 19 hijackers act alone or were they assisted by someone in the United States?” he said. “The official position of the United States government is they acted alone.
My motivation is to try to answer that question,” he said. “Did they act alone or did they have a support structure that made 9/11 possible?”

Yesterday, Shepard Smith of Fox News discussed the story with Judge Napolitano:

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Contributed by Lily Dane of The Daily Sheeple.

Lily Dane is a staff writer for The Daily Sheeple. Her goal is to help people to “Wake the Flock Up!”