President Trump said he’ll consider releasing more government documents on Saudi Arabia’s possible role in the Sept. 11 terror attacks after a 9/11 widow demanded action at the anniversary ceremony in lower Manhattan.
“I’m going to look at it,” Trump said as he boarded Air Force One to return to Washington after a weekend in Ireland. “I know they asked me Friday.”
Trump was responding to an unusual public demand for action by Terry Strada, whose husband was killed in the terror attacks, during the poignant reading of the names of the nearly 3,000 victims at Ground Zero.
Some 9/11 families have long claimed that Saudi Arabia played a bigger role in funding and planning the attacks than has been officially acknowledged. Fifteen of the 19 hijackers were Saudi extremists but the Saudi government says it had nothing to do with the attacks.
“Administration after administration, including leaders in front of us here today, chose to protect the Saudis instead of standing with the 9/11 families,” Strada said Friday. “It has been one betrayal after another. President Trump can still change that.”
The families have long demanded that Trump and previous presidents from both parties should declassify any government files that could reveal official Saudi ties to the terrorists. Some advocates have suggested Saudi government agents assisted some of the hijackers as they plotted the attacks.
Any evidence pointing to official Saudi involvement would be a huge embarrassment to the oil-rich close U.S. ally and the Trump administration.