FBI Tells Former Senate Intelligence Chair To Butt Out On 9/11

Florida's former governor and U.S. senator, Bob Graham, chaired the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence at the time of the 9/11 attacks. Graham has increasingly questioned the 9/11 narrative presented by the Bush administration and the so-called 9/11 Commission, for ignoring potential links between the 9/11 hijackers and members of the Saudi royal family. An early opponent of the Iraq War, Graham could hardly be characterized as a conspiracy crackpot. He's the younger brother of former Washington Post publisher Philip Graham and has served on the CIA's external advisory board since retiring from the Senate.

Graham became particularly interested when investigative reporters in his home state found ties to a Sarasota home owned by a prominent Saudi national and the 9/11 hijackers, which the owners abruptly abandoned, leaving behind valuable vehicles and personal belongings just days before the 9/11 attacks. The Saudi family which owned the home has been directly tied to a Saudi prince whose father is now King of Saudi Arabia. Graham's Senate committee's investigations following 9/11 found important Saudi links; however, the Bush administration insisted on redacting 28 pages in reports publicly-released that discussed those links. Graham has written recent op-ed pieces calling for the release of the redacted information. Now Graham shares with WhoWhatWhy's Russ Baker disturbing conversations he recently had with FBI agents after they stopped him at Dulles International Airport in Washington. Essentially, the FBI told Graham to butt out.

BG: I have a daughter who lives in Great Falls, Virginia, and my wife and I had flown up to Dulles to be with her for Thanksgiving. And as we got off the plane, a couple of FBI people met us, said they would like us to attend a meeting. So we went. The FBI has an office at Dulles, and there were two FBI people and an attorney from the Department of Justice. And basically, we spent an hour—with them trying to convince me to forget this, that it was a dead end, that all that was needed to be learned about it had already been learned. The phrase ‘get a life’ was sort of my summary of that conversation. 

RB: Then it’s even a better story than the way Carl [Hulse of the Times] wrote it up. 

BG: Yeah. And then, I had been able to read a couple of files of materials on Sarasota, and I pointed out where their public statement was not consistent with what was in their own classified files. And the FBI officer said: “Well, that was a matter of context, that there was other information which refuted the statements which were contained in the investigative officer’s report.” So I said, “Well, can I see what that other information is?” And he said “yes” and we set a date for the week after Thanksgiving. And when I went to the FBI office at the scheduled time, that same agent who [was at the meeting at Dulles] was there and he said: “Your meeting here has been canceled, is not going to be rescheduled, and incidentally, I know you’ve been trying to contact the agent who wrote the report, and I have told him not to talk with you.” And that was the last time I met with a high-ranking FBI official. 

RB: Now, without putting you too much on the spot, can you indicate how high a level we’re talking? 

BG: Very high. 

RB: Very high. Okay. So this might be a name that I might have heard of. 

BG: You might have.

Read more at WhoWhatWhy about Baker's interview with Sen. Graham by clicking here.