UPDATE: JAN 10. Click here to watch video of former Florida Sen. Bob Graham, Congressmen Walter Jones, R-N.C. and Stephen Lynch, D-Ma. and others talk about the need to declassify the 28 censored pages from Congress’s Joint Inquiry report on 9/11. Remarks by Graham, who co-chaired the Joint Inquiry, begin at 10:25 into Wednesday’s Capitol Hill press conference.
By Dan Christensen, FloridaBulldog.org
The U.S. House Intelligence Committee has denied a Florida congressman’s request for access to 28 classified pages from the 2002 report of Congress’ Joint Inquiry into the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Rep. Alan Grayson, D-Orlando, told BrowardBulldog.org he made his request at the suggestion of House colleagues who have read them as they consider whether to support a proposed resolution urging President Obama to open those long-censored pages to the public.
“Why was I denied? I have been instrumental in publicizing the Snowden revelations regarding pervasive domestic spying by the government and this is a petty means for the spying industrial complex to lash back,” Grayson said last week, referring to National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden.
Redacted on orders from then-President George W. Bush, the report says the 28 pages concern “specific sources of foreign support” for the 9/11 hijackers while they were in the U.S. Specifically, that is “the role of Saudi Arabia in funding 9/11,” according to former Florida Senator Bob Graham, who co-chaired the Joint Inquiry and helped write the 28 pages.
Graham has long called for declassifying those pages in order to help 9/11 victims and their families find justice, and to better serve national security. In July, 9/11 Commission Chairman Thomas Kean and Vice Chairman Lee Hamilton also came out in support of declassification.
“I’m embarrassed that they’re not declassified,” said Hamilton, a former Indiana congressman. “We emphasized transparency. I assumed incorrectly that our records would be public, all of them, everything.”
House Resolution 428, sponsored by Rep. Walter B. Jones Jr., R-NC, asks President Obama to release the 28 pages of the Joint Inquiry’s report, saying they are “necessary for a full public understanding of the events and circumstances” surrounding the 9/11 attacks.
Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., is one of 21 co-sponsors including Florida Reps. Alcee Hastings, D-Miramar, and Ted Yoho, R-Gainesville. Massie has challenged all members of Congress to read the report, which he said poses no threat to national security.
In 2003, 46 senators – including Joe Biden, Sam Brownback, Hillary Rodham Clinton and John Kerry – wrote to President Bush asking him to declassify the pages.
In a party line vote, the House Intelligence Committee voted 8-4 on Dec. 1 to deny Democrat Grayson access to the 28 pages. The same day, the committee unanimously approved requests to access classified committee documents – not necessarily the 28 pages – by 11 other House members.
Grayson, an outspoken liberal and a member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, said his denial was engineered by outgoing Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Mich. Rogers is a former FBI agent who did not seek re-election in November.
“Congressman Rogers made serious misrepresentations to other committee members when he brought this up,” Grayson in a telephone interview. “When the Guardian reported on the fact that there was universal domestic surveillance regarding every single phone call, including this one, I went to the floor of the House and gave a lengthy speech decrying it.”
“Chairman Rogers told the committee that I had discussed classified information on the floor. He left out the most important part that I was discussing what was reported in the newspaper,” said Grayson. “He clearly misled the committee for an improper purpose: to deny a sitting member of Congress important classified information necessary for me to do my job.”
Rogers did not respond to a request for comment. An aide in his Lansing, Michigan office referred callers to a spokeswoman for the House Intelligence Committee who could not be reached for comment.
Leave a Reply