* Will the FBI produce long withheld documents about anthrax mailing suspect Adnan El-Shukrijumah?
Posted by DXer on April 27, 2015
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Posted by DXer on April 27, 2015
This entry was posted on April 27, 2015 at 10:49 am and is filed under Uncategorized. Tagged: *** 2001 anthrax attacks, *** Amerithrax, *** FBI anthrax investigation, Adnan El-Shukrijumah, FOIA requests & anthrax. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
CASE CLOSED ... what really happened in the 2001 anthrax attacks?
DXer said
https://www.emptywheel.net/
Bob Graham Says FBI Aggressively Deceived on Sarasota 9/11 Investigation
Published April 28, 2016 | By emptywheel
James Clapper has suggested that the 28 pages of the Joint Congressional Inquiry may be declassified by June. I’m skeptical the pages will be entirely declassified, but look forward to them.
Meanwhile, former Senate Intelligence Chair has begun to press for an accounting on the Sarasota cell of apparent 9/11 supporters. In an interview with NPR, he stated clearly that FBI lied (um, misstated) what they knew about the Sarasota cell and called for the investigations to be reopened without the tight time limits imposed on the original commissions.
I think it’s been more than a cover up. I think it’s what I call aggressive deception: instances in which the FBI has publicly released statements which I know from personal experience were untrue. They stated that in this Sarasota situation they had completed the investigation, that the investigation determined that there were no connections between the hijackers and the prominent Saudi family and that they had turned over all of this information to the Congressional Inquiry and the 9/11 Citizen’s [sic] Commission. I know for a fact that none of those three statements are true.
[snip]
It’s more than a cover-up. The FBI misstated what is in their own records relative to the situation in Sarasota.
Of course, the FBI went even further with its aggressive deception on the anthrax attack.
Nevertheless (or perhaps, “as a result”), Robert Mueller will probably have the new FBI headquarters named after him, based on the bogus premise that his FBI didn’t engage in some of the same kinds of deceits as J Edgar Hoover’s FBI did.
Comment:
I don’t know that suppressing information about Adnan El-Shukrijumah constituted aggressive deception. He was at large and his wherabouts were part of an ongoing national security investigation.
But now the documents relating to Shukrijumah should be disclosed pursuant to FOIPA.
DXer said
How our government has used deceit to withhold truth
KENS 10:44 PM. GMT April 20, 2016
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On April 11, CBS’s 60 Minutes led with an important segment about the tragedy of 9/11 and how a 28-page chapter of the final report of a congressional investigation has been withheld from the American people for almost 13 years.
This was not a coverup. It was the result of aggressive deception. Your government has purposely used deceit to withhold the truth.
The reason for deceit: to protect the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia from its complicity in the murder of 2,977 Americans. On April 15, The New York Times reported: “Saudi Arabia has told the Obama administration and members of Congress that it will sell off hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of American assets held by the kingdom if Congress passes a bill that would allow the Saudi government to be held responsible for any role in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.”
If that is not sufficient to get your blood boiling, read on: “The Obama administration has lobbied Congress to block the bill’s passage …”
Of the many unanswered questions of 9/11, the most significant, I believe, is whether the 19 hijackers operated alone or were aided by a support network. The official position of the U.S. government is that they acted alone. Like myself, the lead investigators of 9/11 find it implausible that these 19 poorly educated Arab men — most unable to speak English and with no prior experience in the U.S. — could have conducted such a complex plot without assistance from within our country.
The forms of aggressive deceit have been multiple. A few are illustrative:
• The 28 pages, which have been reported to disclose the sources of funding for the attack, have been under review for purposes of declassification for three years — three times the amount of time required for the congressional inquiry to research, analyze and issue an 838-page report.
• The 28 pages are the most iconic, but not the only, evidence to be withheld from the report of the congressional inquiry. The report is pocked by hundreds of specific redactions.
• Investigations at locales where the hijackers lived and plotted prior to the attacks also have been classified. One of those involves Mohamed Atta, the leader of the hijackers, and two of his henchmen who are alleged to have collaborated with a prominent Saudi family who lived in Sarasota for six years before abruptly departing for Saudi Arabia two weeks before 9/11.
The FBI publicly described its Sarasota investigation as complete and said it found no connection between the hijackers and the family. Later, responding to a Freedom of Information lawsuit, the FBI released an investigative report that said the family had “many connections” to individuals tied to the terrorist attacks. The FBI for two years has aggressively resisted releasing that report. It now claims the agent who prepared the report was incompetent, yet refuses to make public the findings upon which that 20-year career agent was thrown under the bus.
Some now say, why worry about events that will soon be 15 years old? There are at least three reasons to continue demanding full transparency:
Justice: The legislation referred to in The New York Times article is designed to modernize the procedures under which Americans can seek justice in an American court for murder or lesser crimes inflicted on U.S. soil by foreign terrorists. Without this, justice to the families of the victims is denied.
National security: The Saudis blatant attempts to avoid liability as co-conspirators in the crime of 9/11, and the U.S. government’s acquiescence by refusing to release information (and opposition to reforming laws that would hold collaborators in murder to account) has been a clear signal to the Kingdom that it is immune from U.S. sanctions. With that impunity, it continues to finance terrorists and fund mosques and schools used to indoctrinate the next generation of terrorists in intolerance and jihad.
Democracy: The American government is founded on the consent of the governed. To give that consent, the people must know what the government is doing in its name. Distrust in government is reflected in the speeches of today’s presidential candidates. The public’s sometimes angry response is fueled by a sense of betrayal and deceit.
Bob Graham is a former governor of Florida who served three terms in the U.S. Senate and was a co-chairman of the 2002 joint congressional inquiry into the 9/11 attacks. He wrote this column for Treasure Coast Newspapers, part of the USA TODAY NETWORK.
DXer said
Despite uncertainties inherent in many of the reports, this is a meaty, in-depth contribution. Useful survey of the background.
Former Miramar al-Qaida leader hid near U.S.-Mexico border, new …
Miami Herald-18 hours ago
Adnan G. el Shukrijumah, an al-Qaida terrorist leader once based in South Florida, hid in northern Mexico with two other Arab militants in a border city across …
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/national/article60356051.html
DXer said
“Florida al Qaida commander [Shukrijumah] was betrayed by ‘mole’: “Pakistani Taliban, November 25, 2015
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/article46471995.html
DXer said
Rand Paul’s New Crusade: The Secret 9/11 Docs
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/06/02/rand-paul-s-new-crusade-the-secret-9-11-docs.html
Coming off a big government secrecy fight, the Republican presidential hopeful is moving right on to the next: sponsoring a bill to force the release of 28 classified pages on 9/11.
Sen. Rand Paul, the man of the hour when it comes to pushing back against government secrecy, is throwing his weight behind a fresh push to declassify 28 pages from a 2002 Senate inquiry into the causes of 9/11.
The Kentucky Republican is sponsoring legislation called the “Transparency for the Families of 9/11 Act,” which would force the release of the disputed pages. With his support, an important issue that has languished far too long may be finally gaining traction.
Paul is a big catch for the 28 pages movement, as advocates describe their effort. Former Florida senator Bob Graham, who has been banging the drum on the classified pages for years, will also appear alongside Paul at a press conference at the Capitol on Tuesday morning to lend his gravitas to the occasion.
***
Ron Paul has a radio show where he promotes his libertarian views, and father and son agree that you can always look for excuses not to release something, but absent clear harm to national security, government is not supposed to keep things secret because they’re embarrassing.
“I don’t know if it might be embarrassing to the Bush administration, how close they were to the Saudi family,” Jones said. “I just don’t know. I can’t put my fingers on it.”
***
The introduction that precedes the redacted pages says that in the course of the Senate committee’s inquiry, it found some pretty significant leads about the possible sources of support for the 9/11 attackers. But unable to reach firm conclusions within the time frame of the report, and with the resources at hand, the committee passed the information to the FBI. Whether the FBI followed up with sufficient zeal is left to the imagination, and listening to Senator Graham, the answer seems to be no.
***
Jack Quinn, a Washington lawyer acting on behalf of the 9/11 families, is part of the legal team bringing accusations against the Saudi government in a long-standing civil suit in the Southern District of New York.
Comment:
Jack Quinn is a “Super Lawyer” in these circles. So I wouldn’t underestimate the effort. Prince Bandar should support the effort instead of working behind the scenes to oppose it. Jeb Bush should also support it if he wants to win the GOP nomination.
No one is going to win the US Presidential election, IMO, without publicly favoring greater transparency.
Anthrax, Al Qaeda and Ayman Zawahiri: The Infiltration of US Biodefense
http://www.amerithrax.wordpress.com
DXer said
I have noted that the privacy exemption under FOIPA no longer applies to Adnan Shukrijumah, who is deceased.
Attorney Lambert, the former head of the Amerithrax investigation, writes:
“I think you are right, it should all be released unless they make claims that it contains classified material or that disclosure would expose LE sources and methods. My guess is that quite a lot should be released.”
DXer said
So who processed the anthrax into a powder? As I’ve suggested since February 2002, that would be my friend Yazid Sufaat, while working at the lab in Kandahar, Afghanistan. In written exchanges with me, the affable and murderous former Sacramento State biochemistry graduate does not deny it. He pled the Fifth. In Malaysia, Yazid was operating a pathology lab, running medical tests for up to 600 clinics.
Yazid Sufaat told one interviewer on film: “I am not going to hide myself, my face, my name. Why should I? I am handsome, no?”
His trial resumes in Malaysia in about a week or so.
http://www.amerithrax.wordpress.com
Off-topic:
Speak up for the mute swan.
Expecting mute swan Mom Faye will drop her eggs shortly. DEC’s Bryan Swift working on jawboning Manlius into to destroying the eggs like the last intoxicated juvenile drunk on power who destroyed her eggs. It will be up to adults to explain that with the manifest expression of the legislative will, DEC should stand down once the bill passes the Assembly while it awaits the Governor Cuomo’s signature.
It would be unthinkable for Manlius to destroy the eggs during the pendency of this vote and the Governor’s signature.
ASSEMBLYMAN CYMBROWITZ’ BILL TO SAVE NEW YORK’S MUTE SWANS PASSES ENVIRONMENTAL CONSERVATION COMMITTEE
April 27, 2015 at 7:28pm
https://www.facebook.com/notes/assemblyman-steven-cymbrowitz/assemblyman-cymbrowitz-bill-to-save-new-yorks-mute-swans-passes-environmental-co/968861669804208
DXer said
I guess the blog should now do a graphic for Yazid Sufaat. He is currently on trial in Malaysia for recruiting terrorists.
DXer said
DXer says: Adnan El-Shukrijumah is the anthrax mailer … on or about 9/13/2001, he phoned from KSM’s house to tell his mom he was coming to the US
Posted by Lew Weinstein on June 6, 2014
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2014/06/06/dxer-adnan-el-shukrijumah-is-the-anthrax-mailer-on-9132001-he-phoned-from-ksms-house-to-tell-his-mom-he-was-coming-to-the-us/
9/11 Congressional press conference tomorrow: Anthrax mailing suspect Adnan El-Shukrijumah, son of a salaried Saudi missionary, was at this Sarasota, FL home with his accomplice, 911 lead hijacker Mohammed Atta.
Posted by Lew Weinstein on January 6, 2015
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2015/01/06/911-congressional-press-conference-tomorrow-anthrax-mailing-suspect-adnan-el-shukrijumah-son-of-a-salaried-saudi-missionary-was-at-this-sarasota-fl-home-with-his-accomplice-911-lead-hijacker-m/
In February 2003, the FBI announced that “Jafar the Pilot” (aka Adnan El-Shukrijumah) had entered the country sometime after September 1, 2001
Posted on September 26, 2014
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2014/09/26/in-february-2003-the-fbi-announced-that-jafar-the-pilot-aka-adnan-el-shukrijumah-had-entered-the-country-sometime-after-september-1-2001/
Al Hawsawi, who had the anthrax processing documents scanned on his laptop, was closely affiliated with Adnan El-Shukrijumah
Posted by Lew Weinstein on September 22, 2014
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2014/09/22/al-hawsawi-who-had-the-anthrax-processing-documents-scanned-on-his-laptop-was-closely-affiliated-with-adnan-el-shukrijumah/
DXer said
One of the men who set up Yazid Sufaat’s anthrax lab in Kandahar in May 2001 acknowledged association with Jaffar al-Tayyar aka (Adnan al-Shukrijumah) but apparently the interrogator was confused by the multiple aliases
Posted by Lew Weinstein on September 22, 2014
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2014/09/22/one-of-the-men-who-set-up-yazid-sufaats-anthrax-lab-in-kandahar-in-may-2001-acknowledged-association-with-jaffar-al-tayyar-aka-adnan-al-shukrijumah-but-apparently-the-interrogator-was-confused/
Zawahiri and Mohammed Islambouli (brother of Sadat’s assassin) personally visited Adnan El-Shukrijumah’s Brooklyn, NY mosque, Al-Farouq
Posted by Lew Weinstein on June 7, 2013
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2013/06/07/zawahiri-and-mohammed-islambouli-brother-of-sadats-assassination-personally-visited-adnan-el-shukrijumahs-brooklyn-ny-mosque-al-farouq/
FBI’s Undercover Informant Asaad Is Frustrated That He And FBI Missed Opportunity To Thwart Mohammed Atta and Anthrax Letter Suspect Adnan El-Shukrijumah, Al Qaeda’s Current Head Of External Operations
Posted on May 26, 2013
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2013/05/26/fbis-undercover-informant-asaad-is-frustrated-that-he-and-fbi-missed-opportunity-to-thwart-mohammed-atta-and-anthrax-letter-suspect-adnan-el-shukrijumah-al-qaedas-current-head-of-external-opera/
Amerithrax: GAO And Reporters Should Obtain Handwriting Exemplars Of Atta’s Associate El-Shukrijumah, Al Qaeda’s Head of External Operations, Who Promoted His Father’s Language Course
Posted by Lew Weinstein on May 15, 2013
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2013/05/15/amerithrax-gao-and-reporters-should-obtain-handwriting-exemplars-of-attas-associate-el-shukrijumah-al-qaedas-head-of-external-operations-who-promoted-the-esl-language-course/
DXer said
Shukrijumah is dead. Therefore, I don’t think a privacy exemption under FOIPA would apply. A judge is reviewing 80,000 documents in the Sarasota matter brought by Broward Bulldog and Miami Herald etc.
Dan Christensen likely will have the exclusive scoop when any Shukrijumah documents are produced in the context of that long pending FOIA litigation.
Sources:
1.
APRIL 23, 2015 AT 11:37 AM
U.S. judge asked to okay deposition of FBI agent in Sarasota Saudi probe
Filed under 9/11, A1 TOP STORY, DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE{2 COMMENTS}
http://www.floridabulldog.org/2015/04/u-s-judge-asked-to-okay-deposition-of-fbi-agent-in-sarasota-saudi-probe/
2.
Militant with suspected ties to Sarasota Saudi family is killed
By Michael Pollick
Published: Wednesday, December 10, 2014 at 1:12 p.m.
http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20141210/ARTICLE/141219983
3.
FBI report: Sarasota family had ties to people linked to 9/11 attacks
BY DAN CHRISTENSEN AND ANTHONY SUMMERS
BrowardBulldog.org via Miami HeraldApril 16, 2013
http://www.bradenton.com/2013/04/16/4484809/fbi-report-sarasota-family-had.html