AG TODD BLANCHE / 9-11 RECORDS
"It's not as if we're keeping records from the American people. The one thing that we are not doing, we're not protecting people."
"Administration after administration chose to protect the Saudis instead of standing with the 9/11 families. They withheld evidence." — — Terry Strada, 9/11 Families United, ground zero, September 11
On the twenty-fifth anniversary, from the memorial stage, with every living former president seated in front of her, Terry Strada asked this president to tell the Saudis to stop lying. A victim's nephew told the same crowd: "you're our last hope." Sunday, at his Doonbeg resort before boarding Air Force One, Trump said, "I'm going to look at it when I get back. I know they asked me Friday." Monday, in Kansas City, Blanche told CBS the government is not protecting anyone and withholds only "genuine classified information" — and gave no date, and did not answer whether DOJ objects to releasing the Saudi material. The CIA's 71 presidential briefings are not the records the families want. Fifteen of nineteen hijackers were Saudi; in August, Judge George Daniels let the families' case move toward trial. Now the part nobody printed: three days before that interview, as entry #49 recorded, this same department unsealed a removal order it had held for twenty-two days, choosing September 11 as the day to make it public and calling it a win for the rule of law. Same officer, same statutory discretion, same week — one seal opened on schedule because opening it produced an announcement, the other with no schedule at all. His answer is about motive; the families asked about timing. And in 2022, defending a Saudi-funded LIV Golf event at his own club against these same families, Trump said "nobody has gotten to the bottom of 9/11." Four years on, the answer came from another of his golf resorts.