President Donald Trump promised to help 9/11 families get the documents they need to pursue justice for their loved ones lost in the 2001 terrorist attacks that claimed nearly 3,000 lives. But now Attorney General Bill Barr is helping him break it, and it has a lot to do with Trump’s close ties with Saudi Arabia.
During a ceremony at the White House last year, Trump met with the families and assured them of his support of their lawsuit against Saudi Arabia for the role that nation played in the attacks. Most of the 9/11 terrorists were Saudi nationals and the Saudi government allegedly funded test runs on American flights to assess the difficulty of accessing the cockpit.
“He looked us in the eye on 9/11, he shook our hands in the White House and said, ‘I’m going to help you — it’s done,’” Brett Eagleson, who lost his father that day, revealed. “I think the 9/11 families have lost all hope that the president is going to step up and do the right thing. He’s too beholden to the Saudis.”
Indeed, Trump and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman are apparently best buddies forever now, especially after the brutal killing of a Washington Post journalist, a crime that Trump has refused to punish the Saudis for ever since.
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The families are seeking FBI files as part of their lawsuit, but Barr intervened in the dead of night to deliver a filing rejecting the request on national security grounds.
According to Pro Publica:
In a series of filings just before a midnight court deadline on Monday, the attorney general, William Barr; the acting director of national intelligence, Richard Grenell; and other senior officials insisted to a federal judge in the civil case that further disclosures about Saudi connections to the 9/11 plot would imperil national security.
But the administration insisted in court filings that even its justification for that secrecy needed to remain secret. Four statements to the court by FBI and Justice Department officials were filed under seal so they could not be seen by the public. An additional five, including one from the CIA, were shared only with the judge and cannot be read even by the plaintiffs’ lawyers.
Barr insisted to the court that public discussion of the issue ‘would reveal information that could cause the very harms my assertion of the state secrets privilege is intended to prevent.'”
It’s been nearly 20 years since the attacks occurred. Time is running out to give these families the justice they deserve. But Barr is using the flimsy excuse of “national security” to deny it to them, thus siding with the Saudis instead of the American people.
Featured image via screen capture
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