Today marks 24 years since 9/11. A small cabal, led by Robert Mueller, of officials at the State Department, DOJ, and FBI of prior administrations kept the whole truth from the American people.
The nation – Saudi Arabia – that aided and abetted the murder of 3,000 men, women, and children has not been held accountable.
President Trump can now right that egregious wrong.
During September 2000, San Diego resident Osama Bassnan traded several emails and phone calls with a key facilitator of the 9/11 attack plot, Ramzi Binalshibh. While residing in Hamburg, Germany, Binalshibh relayed information and instructions between 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, lead terrorist Mohamed Atta, and the latter’s second-in-command Nawaf al Hazmi.
Bassnan was at the time a paid employee of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA).
Eight months earlier, Hazmi flew into Los Angeles after attending the infamous ‘Malaysia Summit’ meeting of al Qaeda and affiliated members in Kuala Lumpur. He and fellow future hijacker Khalid al-Mihdhar were soon brought by another Saudi employee, Omar al-Bayoumi, to live in an apartment near to him in San Diego. Bayoumi co-signed the lease and helped pay the rent.
On October 17, 1992, Bassnan hosted a party in Washington D.C. for ‘Blind Sheikh’ Omar Abdul Rahman. After 9/11, he allegedly bragged to an FBI informant that he “was of even more help to hijackers Mihdhar and Hazmi than was Bayoumi.” He later lied to investigators about the extent of his contacts with Bayoumi. In fact, the two exchanged 70 phone calls around the time Hazmi and Mihdhar arrived in L.A.
Last month, federal Judge George B. Daniels ruled the lawsuit brought, since 2003, against Saudi Arabia by 9/11 family members and survivors could proceed to trial and full discovery is to take place.
But the FBI has a history of withholding evidence from the courts, Congress, and even its own agents investigating that horrific terrorist attack.
Metropolitan Police Services in the U.K. searched Bayoumi’s apartment in London 10 days after 9/11. They found a June 1999 video made by Bayoumi. It rightfully could be interpreted as scouting the U.S. Capitol as a terror target in Washington, D.C., and included zooming in on security checkpoints. In his August 2025 ruling, Judge Daniels noted that during filming, Bayoumi was accompanied by two Saudis, Mutaeb al-Sudairy and Adel al-Sadhan, who worked at the embassy as propagators of the faith for the KSA’s Ministry of Islamic Affairs (MOIA).
U.K. police also found an airplane sketch, with accompanying equations of the plane’s height to an unidentified point on the ground in D.C. (More than a decade later, aviation experts analyzed the sketch and said the formula could be used to calculate the rate of descent to targets on the horizon.)
They soon provided the video and sketch to the FBI Field Office in New York.
Yet that office withheld them from FBI agents in San Diego investigating those there who may have assisted the hijackers. Two years later, the FBI also withheld both items from the Congressional Joint Inquiry and 9/11 Commission.
The FBI withheld the Capitol casing video from the plaintiffs despite being subpoenaed in 2018. It wasn’t until after Biden’s 2021 Executive Order, directing the FBI to review for declassification its investigation of the Saudi connections, that the Metropolitan Police Services provided it to the lawyers in response to a discovery request.
On a separate note, the FBI’s New York Field Office provided only an edited video of an early 2000 welcoming party – thrown by Bayoumi for Hazmi and Mihdhar – to the 9/11 Commission, which caused it to conclude there had been no ‘San Diego cell’ plot support element. The edited video showed only five attendees. The full video shows that 29 attended.
Several among the additional 24 were also KSA employees. In his ruling. Judge Daniels cited specific examples of the subsequent support to the hijackers by them. One is a footnote which reads, “It is undisputed that [MOIA employee] Rafeea allowed Hazmi to use his bank account to receive a $5,000 wire transfer from KSM’s nephew.”
Undoubtably, those videos, the sketch, and the activities of another Saudi employee, Al Fahad Thumairy, persuaded Judge Daniels to rule in the plaintiffs’ favor. The ruling cites examples of support for the hijackers made by Thumairy, including helping them find housing during their first weeks in America and, while disputed by the parties to the lawsuit, being introduced to Bayoumi.
Full discovery allows the plaintiffs to task the FBI to provide, from its investigative records, information relevant to the Consolidated Amended Pleading of Facts and Evidence stated in the plaintiffs’ 2014 Exhibit A court filing involving the KSA. In paragraph 129, Exhibit A summarizes the scope of Saudi Arabia’s assistance:
“In addition to the support that flowed to al Qaeda from the Kingdom’s charity agents and alter-egos, investigations by the United States and its allies have confirmed that officials within the Ministry of Islamic Affairs and Da’awa collaborated directly with al Qaeda members, and that agents of the Saudi government, including representatives of the Islamic Affairs Departments in the Saudi embassy in Berlin and the Saudi consulate in Los Angeles, provided direct assistance to the September 11th plotters and hijackers, which was essential to the success of the attacks.”
Within his summation, Judge Daniels stated, "... Plaintiffs have managed to provide this Court with reasonable evidence as to the roles played by Bayoumi, Thumairy, and KSA, in assisting the hijackers. KSA did not proffer sufficient evidence to the contrary."
Terry Strada, the national chair of 9/11 Families United, said in a statement, “For nearly a quarter-century, the 9/11 families have sought accountability for the support and resources that helped make the attacks possible. Judge Daniels’ ruling makes clear that Saudi Arabia cannot escape responsibility through procedural maneuvers."
What all does the FBI have on Thumairy receiving a telephone call from a yet-to-be identified person in Malaysia shortly before Hazmi and Mihdhar attended the ‘Malaysia Summit’ in January of 2000? Why did Bassnan receive $75,000 from the Saudi embassy in Washington? Many questions remain, especially about those who worked for the MOIA, such as Sudairy and Sadhan, and others.
President Trump, Attorney General Pam Bondi, and FBI Director Kash Patel must now ensure the whole truth about the nation that aided and abetted the 9/11 attacks is told.