PRESS RELEASE
Rep. Jones and the 9/11 Families To Hold Press Conference July 6 on Capitol Hill To Force Obama To Release the 28 Pages
July 2, 2016 (EIRNS)—Pressure is mounting on President Obama to release the 28-page chapter from the original Joint Congressional Inquiry into 9/11, as weeks have now passed since the date the White House promised to make the final decision. Former Sen. Bob Graham, who co-chaired the Joint Inquiry and has championed the release of the secret chapter, told The Daily Beast’s Eleanor Clift that the White House official who had told him that the decision would be made by mid-June no longer takes his phone calls.
According to representatives of the 9/11 families, Rep. Walter Jones (R-N.C.) will be holding a press conference on July 6 on Capitol Hill with family members to escalate the pressure on both President Obama and the presidential candidates.
Associated Press’ Deb Riechmann published a news account today of the 47-page “File 17” document from the 9/11 Commission, which was declassified by the Interagency Security Clearance Appeals Panel (ISCAP) a year ago. That document spelled out investigative leads on the Saudi government ties to the 19 hijackers. Riechmann began her story, which has been picked up in newspapers around the country:
“Amid the clamor a year ago to release 28 still-secret pages of a congressional inquiry into the Sept. 11 attacks, the government quietly declassified a little-known report listing more than three dozen people who piqued the interest of investigators probing possible Saudi connections to the hijackers.”
She quoted Senator Graham, who confirmed that “Much of the information upon which File 17 was written was based on what’s in the 28 pages.... File 17 said,
‘Here are some additional unanswered questions and here is how we think the 9/11 Commission, the FBI and the CIA should go about finding the answers.’"
Riechmann noted that
“File 17 ... names people the hijackers were in contact with in the United States before the attacks. Some were Saudi diplomats, raising questions about whether Saudi officials knew about the plot.”
After noting that the final report of the 9/11 Commission had “found no evidence” of high-level Saudi Royal Family or government ties, she reviewed some of the most important individuals with ties to both the Saudi government and the 9/11 hijackers. She reviewed the cases of Fahad al-Thumairy, Omar al-Bayoumi, Osama Bassnan and Mohdar Abdullah. Abdullah served as the driver and translator for the two 9/11 hijackers who arrived in Southern California in early 2000, al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi. The 9/11 Commission Report noted:
“During a post 9/11 search of his possessions, the FBI found a notebook (belonging to someone else) with references to planes falling from the sky, mass killing and hijacking.”
In an accompanying article, which may have derived from the 38-page Saudi “talking points” refuting their involvement, Riechmann quoted from 9/11 Commission co-chairs, CIA Director John Brennan and Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir, all denying any Saudi complicity. But she ended by quoting from 9/11 widow Kristen Breitweiser:
“What needs to be understood by anyone who looks at just these facts surrounding the Saudi connection to the 9/11 attacks and the USS Cole bombing is that the Saudis and their relationship to bin Laden and al-Qaeda have never been fully investigated—by anyone—either before or after 9/11.”
