President Trump said Wednesday that he did not discuss Saudi Arabia’s ties to the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks or the extradition of a Saudi man who helped carry out the attacks when he met with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
“I know all about it, but it didn’t come up,” Mr. Trump told reporters on Air Force One.
On Tuesday, Mr. Trump heaped lavish praise on the de facto Saudi ruler, as he and the crown prince signed part of what is expected to be a $600 billion deal to spur economic ties between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia.
Ahead of Mr. Trump’s trip to the Middle East, which includes Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, families of the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks demanded the Saudi government extradite to the U.S. Omar al-Bayoumi, who was working for the kingdom’s intelligence agency at the time.
The advocacy group 9/11 Justice called for Mr. Bayoumi to face justice in the United States after “60 Minutes” released a bombshell report on evidence first obtained by the British Embassy implicating him in the attacks. Mr. Bayoumi surveilled the U.S. Capitol and assisted two hijackers in the lead-up to the attacks, according to evidence obtained by the United Kingdom.
“Our family members are dead. My dad is dead. Every one of these loved ones, family members are dead. 3,000 Americans died on 9/11 and Omar al-Bayoumi walks free in the streets of Saudi Arabia, living his best life,” 9/11 Justice President Brett Eagleson said during a press conference in front of FBI headquarters in Washington.
The group claims the FBI buried the evidence for more than 20 years, and has called on FBI leaders to explain why former officials failed to act on the information.
The Saudi government has long denied any connection to the attacks. But questions over its role have been at the center of a long-running lawsuit filed on behalf of thousands of victims.
Public documents released over the last two decades, including by the U.S. 9/11 Commission, have laid out numerous Saudi ties to the attacks, including some members of its vast and extended royal family. It’s not clear whether they were acting as private individuals or as government officials, although that distinction is less clear in a traditional monarchy like Saudi Arabia than in a democratic republic.
Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of the attack, was a Saudi, as were 15 of the 19 hijackers. The first hijackers to arrive in the U.S. were met and assisted by a Saudi national in 2000 who helped them find and lease an apartment in San Diego.
A video released in April shows those two hijackers, Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdar, meeting with Mr. Bayoumi, who was alleged to be a Saudi intelligence agent.
Mr. Eagleson is part of a lawsuit filed by more than 10,000 victims and relatives against the Saudi government over its ties to the hijackers. His group has waged court battles for years and pushed four U.S. presidents to access key classified documents for its lawsuit.
In 2021, President Biden signed an executive order directing the Department of Justice and other agencies to review documents related to the FBI’s 9/11 investigation for potential declassification. Some of the materials have been released, but they have shed little new light on the attacks.
During his first term, Mr. Trump had promised to release the FBI files, but then-Attorney General William P. Barr in 2020 concluded the documents must stay confidential to protect national security.
