<div dir="ltr"><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div>NYT gives these two things as main takeaways:</div><div><br></div><div>1. "Potential leads went unpursued for years."</div><div><br></div><div>2. "The C.I.A. interfered with a planned F.B.I. investigation, officials say."</div><div><br></div><div>Given what we know now about the Saudi regime, its support of Al Qaeda, its anti-civilian war in Yemen, its murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, and its relationship to the CIA, isn't it quite plausible that the CIA deliberately sabotaged the overall investigation, with the eventual cooperation of some in the FBI leadership? Isn't it quite plausible that senior U.S. officials suspected that the Saudi government was more involved than U.S. officials publicly claimed? Isn't it quite plausible that senior U.S. officials didn't want to know how involved the Saudi government was, because they didn't want us to know? </div><div><br></div><div>Why aren't Democrats in Congress clamoring for the release of the FBI investigation files that the 9/11 families have asked for? </div><div><br></div><div>Why isn't there a push for a Congressional vote on declassification, as a means of pressure for disclosure, as there was with the Senate Intelligence Committee's report on CIA torture? </div><div><br></div><div><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/23/us/september-11-attacks-saudi-arabia.html" target="_blank">https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/23/us/september-11-attacks-saudi-arabia.html</a><br></div><div><br></div><div><div>Did the Saudis Play a Role in 9/11? Here’s What We Found</div><div>Investigators continued to investigate Saudi links to 9/11 even after high-level officials discounted connections.</div></div><div><br></div><div><div>By Daniel Victor</div><div>Jan. 23, 2020</div><div>Updated 11:25 a.m. ET</div></div><div><br></div><div><div style="font-size:16px;margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-stretch:inherit;line-height:inherit;vertical-align:baseline;width:600px;color:rgb(51,51,51)"><p style="margin:0px 0px 0.9375rem;padding:0px;border:0px;font-family:nyt-imperial,georgia,"times new roman",times,serif;font-size:1.25rem;font-style:inherit;font-variant-caps:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;line-height:1.875rem;vertical-align:baseline;width:600px;max-width:100%">F.B.I. agents who secretly investigated Saudi connections to the 9/11 attacks for more than a decade after high-level officials discounted any government links found circumstantial evidence of such support but could not find a smoking gun, a joint investigation by The New York Times Magazine and ProPublica shows.</p><p style="margin:0px 0px 0.9375rem;padding:0px;border:0px;font-family:nyt-imperial,georgia,"times new roman",times,serif;font-size:1.25rem;font-style:inherit;font-variant-caps:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;line-height:1.875rem;vertical-align:baseline;width:600px;max-width:100%">One dogged F.B.I. agent in San Diego helped drive the investigation for years, after superiors advised the team to give up on the case. Three presidential administrations have built a wall of secrecy around information about possible Saudi government ties to the attacks.</p><p style="margin:0px 0px 0.9375rem;padding:0px;border:0px;font-family:nyt-imperial,georgia,"times new roman",times,serif;font-size:1.25rem;font-style:inherit;font-variant-caps:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;line-height:1.875rem;vertical-align:baseline;width:600px;max-width:100%">“Given the lapse of time, I don’t know any reason why the truth should be kept from the American people,” said Richard Lambert, who led the F.B.I.’s initial 9/11 investigation in San Diego.</p><p style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-family:nyt-imperial,georgia,"times new roman",times,serif;font-size:1.25rem;font-style:inherit;font-variant-caps:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;line-height:1.875rem;vertical-align:baseline;width:600px;max-width:100%">The full article includes new details that have never been reported before, revealing missed investigative opportunities. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/23/magazine/9-11-saudi-arabia-fbi.html?" title="" style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-family:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-style:inherit;font-variant-caps:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;line-height:inherit;vertical-align:baseline;color:rgb(50,104,145);text-decoration-line:underline" target="_blank">Read the entire article from The New York Times Magazine here.</a></p><p style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-family:nyt-imperial,georgia,"times new roman",times,serif;font-size:1.25rem;font-style:inherit;font-variant-caps:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;line-height:1.875rem;vertical-align:baseline;width:600px;max-width:100%"><br></p><p style="margin:0px 0px 0.9375rem;padding:0px;border:0px;font-family:nyt-imperial,georgia,"times new roman",times,serif;font-size:1.25rem;font-stretch:inherit;line-height:1.875rem;vertical-align:baseline;width:600px;max-width:100%">But if you have limited time, here are the main takeaways.</p><h2 id="m_-3425256100862106139gmail-link-1bfbe69b" style="margin:35px auto 1.25rem;padding:0px;border:0px;font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,"times new roman",times,serif;font-size:1.75rem;font-stretch:inherit;line-height:2.125rem;vertical-align:baseline;color:rgb(18,18,18);width:600px;max-width:100%">Potential leads went unpursued for years.</h2><p style="margin:0px 0px 0.9375rem;padding:0px;border:0px;font-family:nyt-imperial,georgia,"times new roman",times,serif;font-size:1.25rem;font-stretch:inherit;line-height:1.875rem;vertical-align:baseline;width:600px;max-width:100%">An investigator found evidence that suggested Omar al-Bayoumi, a mysteriously well-connected Saudi student who knew two of the hijackers, might have had prior knowledge of the attacks, even though senior U.S. officials had essentially exonerated him.</p><blockquote style="margin:0px 0px 1.25rem;padding:0px 0px 0px 0.9375rem;border-width:0px 0px 0px 1px;border-left-style:solid;border-left-color:rgb(226,226,226);font-family:nyt-imperial,georgia,"times new roman",times,serif;font-stretch:inherit;line-height:inherit;vertical-align:baseline;quotes:none;color:rgb(85,85,85);width:600px;max-width:100%"><p style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-size:1.125rem;font-style:inherit;font-variant-caps:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;line-height:1.75rem;vertical-align:baseline;width:540px">In a trove of seemingly disorganized evidence taken from Bayoumi’s home in Birmingham, England, in 2001, [a] detective found a spiral notebook that contained a hand-drawn aviation diagram of a plane descending to strike a spot on the ground. An F.B.I. agent who had studied aeronautical engineering concluded that the diagram showed a formula for an aerial descent like the one performed by Flight 77, the jet that Hazmi and Mihdhar hijacked, before it struck the Pentagon. Apparently, the notebook and its contents went unnoticed after Bayoumi’s detention and hadn’t been looked at again.</p></blockquote><p style="margin:0px 0px 0.9375rem;padding:0px;border:0px;font-family:nyt-imperial,georgia,"times new roman",times,serif;font-size:1.25rem;font-stretch:inherit;line-height:1.875rem;vertical-align:baseline;width:600px;max-width:100%">A former supervisor of the investigation said he thought the finding would have been more significant if it had been discovered in the fall of 2001.</p><p style="margin:0px 0px 0.9375rem;padding:0px;border:0px;font-family:nyt-imperial,georgia,"times new roman",times,serif;font-size:1.25rem;font-stretch:inherit;line-height:1.875rem;vertical-align:baseline;width:600px;max-width:100%">“That would have been harder evidence,” the supervisor, Joseph Foelsch, said. “If not a smoking gun, a warm gun.”</p><p style="margin:0px 0px 0.9375rem;padding:0px;border:0px;font-family:nyt-imperial,georgia,"times new roman",times,serif;font-size:1.25rem;font-stretch:inherit;line-height:1.875rem;vertical-align:baseline;width:600px;max-width:100%">Telephone records that were reanalyzed years later revealed multiple calls among Mr. Bayoumi; Fahad al-Thumairy, a Saudi diplomat and imam; and Anwar al-Awlaki, a Yemeni-American imam who was killed in a drone attack in 2011.</p><h2 id="m_-3425256100862106139gmail-link-13046fcb" style="margin:35px auto 1.25rem;padding:0px;border:0px;font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,"times new roman",times,serif;font-size:1.75rem;font-stretch:inherit;line-height:2.125rem;vertical-align:baseline;color:rgb(18,18,18);width:600px;max-width:100%">The C.I.A. interfered with a planned F.B.I. investigation, officials say.</h2><p style="margin:0px 0px 0.9375rem;padding:0px;border:0px;font-family:nyt-imperial,georgia,"times new roman",times,serif;font-size:1.25rem;font-stretch:inherit;line-height:1.875rem;vertical-align:baseline;width:600px;max-width:100%">In 2010, the F.B.I. planned to place two Saudi religious officials from the kingdom’s Ministry of Islamic Affairs under full-time surveillance. The bureau had previously found that their travel overlapped with movements by the hijackers and people believed to be supporting them, and that they had ties to suspected militants. The two men sought new visas to study English in the United States, which officials feared could be cover for something nefarious.</p><p style="margin:0px 0px 0.9375rem;padding:0px;border:0px;font-family:nyt-imperial,georgia,"times new roman",times,serif;font-size:1.25rem;font-stretch:inherit;line-height:1.875rem;vertical-align:baseline;width:600px;max-width:100%">But, F.B.I. agents believe, the C.I.A. intervened before the surveillance could happen.</p><blockquote style="margin:0px 0px 1.25rem;padding:0px 0px 0px 0.9375rem;border-width:0px 0px 0px 1px;border-left-style:solid;border-left-color:rgb(226,226,226);font-family:nyt-imperial,georgia,"times new roman",times,serif;font-stretch:inherit;line-height:inherit;vertical-align:baseline;quotes:none;color:rgb(85,85,85);width:600px;max-width:100%"><p style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-size:1.125rem;font-style:inherit;font-variant-caps:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;line-height:1.75rem;vertical-align:baseline;width:540px">The episode, which has not been previously reported, ended abruptly. In the Saudi capital of Riyadh, C.I.A. officers objected strongly to the F.B.I. plan, one former official said. “They didn’t want to give the Saudis a black eye by letting these guys walk into a trap,” the former official said. For reasons that remain unclear, the two Saudis canceled the visit at the last minute. F.B.I. officials suspected that someone in the Saudi government had been warned.</p></blockquote><h2 id="m_-3425256100862106139gmail-link-77024545" style="margin:35px auto 1.25rem;padding:0px;border:0px;font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,"times new roman",times,serif;font-size:1.75rem;font-stretch:inherit;line-height:2.125rem;vertical-align:baseline;color:rgb(18,18,18);width:600px;max-width:100%"><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:-webkit-standard;font-size:medium;font-weight:normal">[...]</span><br></h2></div><br style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>
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