Former 9/11 Commissioner Won’t Deny Saudi Royal Family Knew of Terror Plot

During Tuesday’s hearing of the House Foreign Relations subcommittee, former 9/11 Commission-member Tim Roemer refused to rule out the possibility that the Saudi Royal family knew about the plot prior to the attack — and urged the chairman to read the 28 classified pages of the 9/11 report.

Republican Representative Dana Rohrabacher asked the four-person panel whether they “believed that the royal family of Saudi Arabia did not know and was unaware that there was a terrorist plot being implemented that would result in an historic terrorist attack in the United States, in the lead up to 9/11?”

Roemer and Simon Henderson, the director of the Gulf and Energy Policy Program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, declined to raise their hands.

“Congressman, that is just too difficult a question for someone to raise their hand or put their hand down,” Roemer explained, before suggesting that Rohrabacher read the 28-pages of the 9/11 report that were deemed classified, regarding international support for the attack.

The 28 classified pages have been a hotly contested issue, as former members of the 9/11 Commission, family members of victims of the attack, activists, and other lawmakers have long campaigned for their public release.

Rohrabacher further asserted that “the Saudi royal family [has] been right up to their eyeballs in supporting radical Islamic terror in the Middle East.”

Last week, the Senate passed the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, which was promoted to simplify the process for the families of 9/11 victims to sue Saudi Arabia and other foreign sponsors of terror. However, an amendment was added at the final moment by Senator Charles Schumer, granting the attorney general and secretary of state the power to stop any litigation against the Saudi government.

“How do I feel about the Justice Department being given this power? Not good,” 9/11 widow Kristen Breitweiser told the New York Post. “Their failure to bring their own Saudi indictment reveals how little they care about holding the Saudis accountable for either their funding or operational support of the 9/11 hijackers.?”