Attorney General Todd Blanche on Monday committed to releasing more government records related to Saudi Arabia’s possible connections to 9/11, in response to family members of those who died during the attacks who have fought for more information on the issue.
On the 25th anniversary of 9/11 last week, several family members attended a New York City ceremony where they made direct appeals to the Trump administration to release more information, describing the government’s handling of the issue since Sept. 11, 2001, as “one betrayal after another.” When pressed on the controversy, Blanche argued during a CBS News interview this week that some records contain “genuine classified information,” but said that the Trump administration is working to declassify as many documents as it can, and is not looking to protect any other “government or any entity.”
“It’s not as if we’re keeping records from the American people,” Blanche said. “Sometimes there’s documents that are classified, and they shouldn’t be, and so those are the ones that we’re going to release to the American public. We’ve already released a lot. President Trump talked about this weekend that we’re going to continue to work to release as many as we can.”
“The one thing that we are not doing — we’re not protecting people. The reason that we’re not releasing documents has nothing to do with protecting any government or any entity. It’s just to protect genuine classified information,” he added. “Some of these records are highly classified for reasons that are appropriate.”
The development comes after Terry Strada, whose husband, Tom Strada, was killed in the north tower during the terrorist attack, as well as the nephew of Lisa Marie Terry, who was killed in the World Trade Center, urged the Trump administration on Friday not to “protect the Saudis.”
“For 25 years, administration after administration, including leaders in front of us here today, chose to protect the Saudis instead of standing with the 9/11 families,” Strada told Vice President JD Vance during the remembrance ceremony in New York.
On Monday, Blanche responded to the families directly.
“There’ll be more records coming out,” the attorney general promised. “And so, to the families that are still looking for answers, we are, too. And that’s what we’re going to deliver to them.”
The development comes as some 9/11 victims’ advocates have long raised concerns that Saudi Arabia aided in the terrorist attacks. There is currently a lawsuit headed to trial in the Southern District of New York alleging there is “reasonable evidence” that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia used two Saudi men—Omar al Bayoumi and Fahad al Thumairy— to assist the radical Islamic jihadists who hijacked multiple planes in the 2001 attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people.
SENATORS DEMAND UNREDACTED 9/11 DOCUMENTS ON SAUDI ROLE IN ATTACKS
U.S. District Judge George Daniels declined to dismiss the lawsuit last May, striking a blow to the kingdom.
“Although KSA attempts to offer seemingly innocent explanations or context, they are either self-contradictory or not strong enough to overcome the inference that KSA had employed Bayoumi and Thumairy to assist the hijackers,” Daniels wrote.