Front Burner - ‘What are they hiding?’ 9/11 families fight for U.S. documents

Episode Date: September 9, 2021

As the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks approaches, ProPublica’s Tim Golden fills us in on why families of those killed are suing Saudi Arabia, and what secrets are contained in documents they want released.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. This just in, you were looking at obviously a very disturbing live shot there. That is the World Trade Center, and we have unconfirmed reports this morning that a plane has crashed into one of the towers of the World Trade Center.

CNN Center. Oh, my goodness. Oh, God. There's another one. Oh, my goodness. There's another one. Oh my goodness, there's another one. This is as close as we can get to the base of the World Trade Center. You can see the firemen assembled here, the police officers, FBI agents, and you can see the two towers.

A huge explosion now, raining debris on all of us. We better get out of the way. A few days from now will mark the 20th anniversary of the 9-11 attacks. 2,977 people were killed when 19 hijackers commandeered four planes, crashing them into the Twin Towers in New York City, the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. The families of the victims will gather on the anniversary to honor the dead.

And last month, they sent a message to U.S. President Joe Biden. Don't dare show up to our memorials unless you keep your promise to declassify documents related to the attack. Documents that they believe could help them show in court what role the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia played in 9-11. Last week, Biden announced that he'd do just that, ordering the U.S. Department of Justice to review documents from the FBI's investigation for declassification and then release. ProPublica's Tim Golden has been digging into the Saudi connection to 9-11 for years now.

He's here with me today to discuss why these families are going after the Saudi government, what they hope to learn from these documents, and the secrecy that has swirled around this part of the story for 20 long years. Hi, Tim. Hi. Thanks so much for coming on to the podcast. Thanks for having me. So these loved ones of those who died on 9-11 have been asking for a really long time for these documents, in part because they think they could help in their court case against the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. And so I wonder if we could start there. Can you briefly explain what this lawsuit alleges? The families have been

trying for some time to hold the government of Saudi Arabia at least partially responsible for the attacks. And what they have said is that even if the central Saudi government, the royal family, did not intend or plot the attacks itself, figures associated with the Saudi government, people paid by the Saudi government, who may have been acting on their own, still appear to have supported at least a couple of the hijackers in meaningful ways. Okay, I want to dig into this a little bit more with you just in one second. But first, you know, when we're referring to the people behind this case, as families and loved ones of those who died in 9-11, can you tell me a bit more about who's actually behind the suit?

Well, there's a whole series of different family groups, and it's not just families. It's also people who actually survived the attacks and have all really come together to sue the Saudi government in federal district court in Manhattan. And they include people like Brett Eagleson, with whom I was talking yesterday, who's one of the family spokesmen, who was a 15-year-old kid when his father, a firefighter, died. 20 years is far too long for anybody to wait for information on murder of loved ones. The United States government has documents. They admit that they have documents which show complicity on behalf of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. There are people who were in the towers.

There are widows of men and women who worked in the towers or worked in the Pentagon. Well, joining me now from Washington, D.C., is Terry Strada, the wife of 9-11 victim Tom Strada. So why do you want the right to sue the Saudi government? Because we want to hold them accountable. We want to hold the people that were behind, you know, financing and aiding and abetting the terrorists here accountable in a court of law. We want justice for the murder of our loved ones. And kids who were small children when their parents perished and have now grown up really feeling like there has not been a full accounting of what took place and how this was able to happen.

Okay. And so back to the court case now, I wonder if you could elaborate for me on why these family members, these loved ones believe people connected to the Saudi regime, the Saudi government had something to do with 9-11. What evidence do they have now to support this suit? The lawsuit really focuses on part of the FBI's investigation to the 9-11 plot that had been almost entirely secret until a report that we did on this last year with the New York Times Magazine. And what that story revealed was that a small group of FBI investigators who had been involved in the initial huge investigation of the 9-11 case, had continued to dig into unanswered questions and had continued to pursue the Saudi piece of this in particular.

Those FBI agents looked especially at the first two hijackers who arrived in the United States flying into Los Angeles International Airport on January 15, 2000. Those two young men who were both Saudis, they came from Mecca, they were fairly well established al-Qaeda terrorists, al-Qaeda operatives, really spoke almost no English, virtually no English. They didn't know anything about how to operate in a Western society. Yet somehow they quickly made their way to a Saudi-built mosque in Los Angeles, just down the street from Sony Picture Studios. And they met up there, first, it seems, with a Saudi imam, who was also a religious official of the government designated to the Saudi consulate

in Los Angeles. And they later connected, people said just by chance, but there's a lot of questions about this, but they connected with a man who was a supposed Saudi graduate student in San Diego. And this man, Omar al-Bayoumi, meets them in a cafe. How he got to the cafe is a whole suspicious story. But he walks into this cafe and says he hears these two Saudi men speaking Arabic that he recognizes, introduces himself and invites them subsequently to move to San Diego. Says, yo, you've come to Southern California, you should really move to San Diego. Few days later, he is finding them an apartment in his apartment building. He's giving them money to rent the apartment on a temporary basis. He's introducing him to his circle of people in San Diego who include the future Al-Qaeda cleric and theologian Anwar al-Awlaki. And he is helping them navigate this new world for them.

So it turns out that this man, this supposed student, Omar al-Bayoumi, was actually a former employee of the Saudi defense establishment of the Civil Aviation Agency. He's being paid in the United States through a conduit by the Saudi defense ministry. And he's got all kinds of connections, according to phone records and other evidence, that have been found by lawyers for the families to this imam, who he claims to sort of barely know. So there's a web of circumstantial evidence that shows at least that there was much more connectivity between these two figures and other people that they were connected to and these two crucial hijackers. And so just to be clear here, is the allegation coming from the families that these men who had all these connections to the Saudi regime, the Saudi government, and were connected to these hijackers, that these men knew what the endgame was here?

That they knew that they were planning this horrific attack on American soil? It's not entirely clear what the families need to prove in court in order to establish some responsibility for the Saudi kingdom in this case. The FBI has said since 2003, 2004, when it was providing information to the bipartisan 9-11 commission in the United States, that it believed that the support that Bayoumi and this Saudi cleric Fahad al-Thumary were giving or might have given to the two hijackers was unwitting, that those two guys didn't know they were al-Qaeda men, that they had no idea about the plot. As time has gone on, those assertions, that position has really come more and more into question because of the new evidence that FBI

agents subsequently developed. And so when you say that new evidence, is that what you just went over or are we talking about something else here? Well, there's more than what I refer to. There's more to it than that, I think. There are phone records that show that Omar al-Bayoumi was very connected to the Saudi consulate. He was connected to the mosque. He was connected specifically to Fahad al-Thumairi, the cleric who, it turns out, may, according to one or more witnesses, may have helped the hijackers find lodging in the first days that they were in Southern California. In some ways, the lawsuit has become a kind of third phase of this investigation because they've

gone back to a bunch of information that the FBI has developed and have started questioning that in new ways and digging up new material. In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. You may have seen my money show on Netflix. I've been talking about money for 20 years.

I've talked to millions of people and I have some startling numbers to share with you. Did you know that of the people I speak to, 50% of them do not know their own household income? That's not a typo. 50%. That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. And so speaking of that FBI investigation, I mentioned in the introduction that they've been fighting for the release of these documents related to the FBI's investigation. And what are they hoping they could glean from these documents? Well, the documents clearly underscore suspicions that the government had about Saudi connections to the 9-11 plot, or at least ties between these kind of peripheral Saudi figures and some of the hijackers. The Bush administration

and the 9-11 Commission and the FBI all had the strong view that the Saudi government as a government, the royal family, really had no possible interest in supporting this kind of attack on the United States. It was seemingly against their interests in having a close relationship with the United States. And it became very clear that al-Qaeda was an enemy of the Saudi royal family and had been for some time. The question is whether the Saudi government, which gave a very wide berth, a lot of autonomy and a lot of money to pretty radical Islamist clerics in the kingdom, created a circumstance in which those clerics were able to provide money to al-Qaeda affiliated charities and in which people who were part

of that religious bureaucracy might have been able to help some of these hijackers, even if they didn't know exactly what they were plotting to do. Right, right. And that is what this lawsuit is taking aim at, right? This leeway, essentially. And that is why they believe that the government could be held financially responsible. That's right. The families really only have to connect dots here. This is a civil case. It's

not a criminal standard of evidence, but they do have to make a persuasive enough case that they would be able to establish some indirect, if not direct, responsibility for the kingdom. And of course, what they're seeking is potentially enormous recompense, you know, damages in the hundreds of millions or who knows what amount of money, because as in a case like an airline crash, they would pay out a significant amount of money per victim. Coming back to the U.S. government for a moment, these documents that the families have been trying to get, why has it been so difficult for them to get this information from their own government here? Saudi government was concerned and reluctant to provide information because they did not want the disclosure of investigative information that might embarrass the Saudi kingdom to have a negative impact on the fight against terrorism.

Bush in Saudi Arabia, a crucial stopover on his tour of the Middle East. The Saudis and the Americans held their ties are strong and based on mutual understanding. The Obama administration, which was less close to the Saudis, continued in that same vein, I think, to a significant degree. And then later on had a whole bunch of other reasons to try to keep the Saudis on board. They wanted Saudi support for peace in the on board. They wanted Saudi support for peace in the Middle East. They wanted Saudi support for the Iran nuclear deal. It's a great pleasure to welcome His Majesty King Salman to the Oval Office. This is

the latest of several meetings that I've had with His Majesty and the fact that he has chosen to take this first visit to the United States is indicative of the longstanding friendship between the United States and Saudi Arabia. And President Obama in 2016 actually vetoed legislation that allowed the families to sue the Saudi government. Congress then went in and overrode that veto on behalf of the families. And what about the Trump administration? President Trump came into office really presenting himself as a big ally of the 9-11 families. And he had done that long before he became president. he had done that long before he became president. But of course, as soon as he got into office,

he also very quickly aligned himself as closely with the Saudi regime as he did with any government almost in the world. For a man who values the power of an image, this is what Donald Trump wants the world to see. The royal embrace by Saudi Arabia's King Salman included plenty of pomp and ceremony and the awarding of the country's top civilian honor. And so you had the spectacle in 2019 of President Trump promising the families as they came up beseeching his help in getting these documents released and

President Trump promising to one group of families after another that he would help them. And then literally the next day, the Department of Justice and the Attorney General turning around and asserting that the information could not be released because these were state secrets of the United States. The idea that these are state secrets, could not be released because these were state secrets of the United States. The idea that these are state secrets, could that be another reason why they can't release them sort of beyond the politics of the whole thing? Like, might there be another reason why they can't release them, I guess, is the question I have. I think there are a few reasons. I think there's concern about upsetting the Saudis in terms of the war on

terrorism and other geostrategic interests that the United States has. I think there's a question of the FBI being embarrassed that some of this material really undercuts pretty forceful assertions that they made, that the agency made, and the United States government made about the plot in the early years, 2004, and its presentations to the 9-11 Commission. And by those assertions, you mean assertions that Saudi Arabia had nothing to do with this? That the Saudi government as a government was really blameless and was not involved. Okay, okay. And then I think you do have a legitimate third issue. I think the FBI and the CIA and other national security agencies

do clearly have serious concerns that some of this information, depending on the way in which it's revealed, could jeopardize intelligence sources that they have related to Saudi Arabia or other countries, intelligence methods that they have related to Saudi Arabia or other countries, intelligence methods that they used. And those are always questions on which those agencies are going to fight tooth and nail, even if the concerns seem outdated or a bit of a stretch to people on

the outside. So given all those reasons, would it be fair to characterize this as a change of heart then from the Biden administration? So he said that a bunch of the documents are going to be declassified. I think President Biden genuinely feels like the families deserve a fuller accounting. But I do think it really remains to be seen where the agencies will come out in terms of what they're willing to disclose on some of these documents. So how far the government's going to go and how significant this executive order is going to be, I think very much remains to be seen. Okay. Earlier you mentioned, or we talked about the financial restitution that the families could stand to receive here with this lawsuit. But I

imagine that given everything they've been through, this is so much bigger than just money, right? I think it is. I think there is a genuine feeling that there are just huge questions about what happened. And some of that is because the stakes are so high, the trauma is so profound. But some of it is also that years after the enormous effort that went into the bipartisan 9-11 commission, and after it seemed like there was a really remarkable effort by the United States to get to the bottom of what happened, people have realized that there is a whole lot that they didn't know. And there was this whole follow-on investigation by the FBI that turned up all kinds of evidence and really wasn't very supported by the FBI leadership.

The Joint Terrorism Task Force in New York effectively shut that investigation down in 2016 when it disbanded the small group of agents that were still working on this. And despite that, the government has continued, the Justice Department has continued to argue until last month in federal court that this investigation was ongoing. And that was a reason why they couldn't disclose any of the information or some of the information that the families wanted. What does all that say to you, right? Like we're 20 years out from this attack. The families of those who died are still fighting to find out what happened.

And their own government has often stood in the way of that. I think there's one big question at the bottom of all of this, which is what are they hiding? It almost doesn't make sense that they should go to such extraordinary lengths to protect this information when the political stakes are also clearly high. officers, all of the people who are fighting tooth and nail to protect this information are also people who have, in many cases, dedicated themselves to fighting terrorism, to figuring out what happened in these attacks. So, you know, at the end of the day, it doesn't entirely make sense. You also have the fact that the FBI and CIA both had devastating, terrible intelligence failures here. The CIA let these two hijackers fly into the United States after it had been keeping them under surveillance in Malaysia. And it didn't tell the FBI for more than a year thereafter, until late August, weeks before the attacks, at which point it was really too late to chase these

guys down. The FBI had its own failures in the Massawi case where they could have gotten into the computer of one of the possible hijackers. So there are skeletons in everybody's closet here, but whether those are big enough 20 years later to justify what's going on, I don't know. We just don't know what's being hidden, so it's hard to understand why. environment that supported these hijackers. It's also how the United States investigated and did intelligence around this entire terrorist attack and what might come to light that hasn't come to light before. All of these issues are kind of in the mix together. And until we really know what might come out, it's almost impossible to make sense of why this information might still 20 years later be under wraps. Okay.

Tim, thank you so much for this. Thank you. All right. That is all for today. Thanks so much for listening to FrontBurner, and we'll talk to you tomorrow. Thank you.