Twenty-five years after Sept. 11, a trove of newly obtained records is offering what families of the victims characterize in court as compelling evidence of deep Saudi complicity in the attacks. Now, as their decade-old lawsuit against the Saudi kingdom marches toward trial, the families are pressing the Trump administration to declassify more government records they believe could finally deliver justice.
The newly revealed records, from a lawsuit involving an alleged Saudi agent, include a video purportedly casing the Capitol two years before the attacks and a sketch that purportedly shows calculations for navigating a plane toward a target on the ground, which one family member called “smoking gun evidence.”
The decision on whether to declassify additional records ultimately lies with President Donald Trump, whose administration has touted government transparency and who has personally signed executive orders declassifying records ranging from purported UFO sightings to high-profile assassinations.
“We’ve seen him do it for the [President John F. Kennedy] files. Why not the 9/11 files?” Brett Eagleson, whose father Bruce was killed in the World Trade Center’s South Tower, said in an interview with ABC News.
“Now is the moment, 25 years later, to finally bring resolution,” Eagleson said, “and the man that sits in the Oval Office has a historic and a tremendous opportunity to do it.”
Eagleson has enlisted the support of members of the New York congressional delegation to press the administration to release key records that include phone logs purportedly belonging to Omar al-Bayoumi, who the families allege is a Saudi intelligence asset, as well as two of the hijackers.
Among those who cosigned a letter seeking the declassification of those records is Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, R-N.Y., a Trump ally who is urging the president take up the matter before the 25th anniversary, less than two weeks away.
“This is probably one of the better shots that we have at getting this information out there,” Malliotakis said. “And I think that hopefully we’ll see this type of transparency coming from this administration.”
White House spokesperson Anna Kelly told ABC News, “President Trump is leading the most transparent administration in history, and his team is working diligently to identify records that are responsive to these families’ request.”
The families have waged their legal campaign against the Saudis in one form or another since 2003, but only recently uncovered videos, notes and other records they say offer irrefutable evidence of Saudi government complicity — claims that the Saudis have long denied.
