By: Rusty Brooks
As we get closer to the 20th anniversary of the September 11th terror attacks, many questions still remain, especially ones which pertain to Saudi Arabia’s involvement with the terror attacks.
A group of 22 New York and New Jersey federal lawmakers, including lone Republican Nicole Malliotakis and NY Sens. Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, sent a letter to US Attorney General Merrick Garland, challenging the “state secrets privilege” that ex-Presidents Trump, Obama and Bush invoked to block release of a classified 16-page FBI report, The NY Post reported.
Many 9/11 families have been attempting to file a lawsuit against Saudi Arabia and this 16-page FBI report, is vital for their case.
The letter reads:
We write respectfully to bring to your attention the decision by the Department of Justice, under the previous Administration, to assert the so-called “state secrets privilege” in litigation brought by victims of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The 9/11 families—many of whom we have the honor of representing in Congress—have fought relentlessly for nearly twenty years to bring to justice all those associated with the worst terrorist attack on American soil. Your predecessor, on more than one occasion, asserted the “state secrets privilege” in litigation brought by the victims of the 9/11 attacks and their families against the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
We understand that the families in this litigation seek documents that they believe would show Saudi Arabia’s complicity in the attacks, as well as information related to Operation Encore, an investigation conducted by the FBI between 2007 and 2016. Like other victims, these families deserve to go to court with all the evidence available to them under a fair application of the law.
“After nearly 20 years, it is long past time that the American public learned the extent of Saudi Arabia’s role in 9/11,” said Brett Eagleson, who was 15 when his father was killed in the South Tower collapse, told the NY Post.
Eagleson, was promised by Trump that something would happen, when he met the president in person, however former US Attorney William Barr cited the “state secrets privilege” on an executive order to block the release.
In addition to this letter, the NY Post pointed out Malliotakis sent Garland an April 21 letter, signed by four fellow GOP Congress members, charging that the 9/11 victims and injured first responders have been deprived of justice. She demanded an immediate release of the FBI report.
Also, as the Post pointed out, more than 2,100 family members signed a March 12 letter to President Biden and Garland, alleging the DOJ and FBI “have continually obstructed and impeded” their lawsuit against Saudi Arabia. The FBI has repeatedly denied access to these sealed files and have claimed releasing them is a danger to American security.
“It’s outrageous,” attorney Andrew Maloney told the Boston Herald, when the families were denied access to the files from the FBI at the end of April. “That information is 20 years old and there’s no reason not to give us this information.”
Maloney’s firm, Kreindler and Kreindler with offices in Boston, represents 10,000 families who lost loved ones on Sept. 11, 2001, or had family members die from the toxic fallout following the toppling of the Twin Towers in New York City.
