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Fox News Bret Baier sat down with Saudi Arabian leader Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman tonight and, to Baier’s credit, asked some pointed questions which MBS – as he is known – answered in turn with degrees of candor and deflection.
Among them were queries about the reported $2 billion the Kingdom invested with Jared Kushner shortly after Donald Trump left office, the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, the normalization of ties with Israel, LIV Golf, Russia and, maybe most important to many Americans, the Saudi government’s role in the attacks of 9/11.
“Recently in the U.S., we remembered the 22nd anniversary of the 911 attacks,” Baier began. “As you know, 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudis, and the 9/11 victims families, you know, they make their feelings clear, especially around the anniversary, that they believe there’s intelligence that somehow links the Saudi government to supporting or facilitating those hijackers. What do you say to those 9/11 families 22 years later?”
Salman replied, “Well, I’m very sorry that anyone losing every one of his family. No one want to lose his family, especially in a way like like that. Yes, there’s 15 Saudi and that being planned by Osama bin Laden, that’s well known.
He then maintained that both Saudi Arabia and the U.S. were victims of bin Laden attacks, and if Americans believe the Saudi government was behind 9/11, then “bin Laden succeeded in his plan” to sully relations between the countries.
“Osama bin Laden being planned also, a lot of attacks in Saudi Arabia. So it doesn’t make any sense that we work with the guy who’s doing terrorist attack in Saudi Arabia in the 90s. And after that, killing Saudis and foreign people at that time in Saudi Arabia. He’s our enemy and he’s the American enemy. The main attempt for Osama bin Laden — and that’s by the reports — the main attempted to prove as much as they can. He got Saudis to be sure that he create a problem between America and Saudi Arabia. So if people in America fall to that, that means Bin laden succeeded in his plan.”
In a statement tonight responding to the Fox News interview, 9/11 Families United maintained that Saudi Arabia is blocking access to 9/11-related government records still not made public.
“…at this very moment, the Kingdom’s high-priced lawyers are aggressively opposing the 9/11 families in federal court to prevent us from using this documentary evidence against them. They have also opposed the production of their own documents, opposed the questioning of witnesses, and asked the court to foreclose us from seeking evidence from the FBI about its investigation of the Saudi government agents.”
Earlier this year, ProPublica reported that lawyers for 9/11 families argued in court that new evidence released last year by the FBI so radically contradicts Saudi claims about the attack that the 9/11 families should be allowed to reopen discovery in order to seek information from the country’s intelligence service. So far, the judge in the case has been unconvinced.
The Saudi government has put forth a motion to dismiss the case. Arguments on that could be heard this fall.
Editor’s Note: Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund acquired a minority stake in Deadline owner PMC in 2018.
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