Reaction & Commentary
Pleasure let’s go and put this tear sheet up on the the screen that was flagged for me so you got a hold of some court filings that shed some light on a key meeting in the run-up to 911 go ahead and put the element up on the
Screen there guys this is something that uh this is something a lot of folks have focused on which is you had two of the eventual hijackers in this supposedly theoretically chance encounter with a man named Omar albayumi who was a Saudi intelligence asset take us back to that
Meeting why that meeting ends up being so significant and what you were able to uncover through your reporting well it’s it’s one of those extraordinary meetings you read about in spy stories uh uh something that seems like a innocuous everyday event that turns out to be a huge
Huge momentous event in the 9 11 attacks so these this happened at a restaurant in Los Angeles um middle eastern restaurant Omar albayumi uh was there supposedly by chance he says drops a piece of paper and Strikes up a conversation with these two men who also just happen to be there
Um but now we know a lot more you know it’s taken 20 years to learn that obar bayumi was a Saudi intelligence asset and that he was directed to go there um by a network an intelligence Network that was a Saudi intelligence network is operating inside the United States
Um and the more astonishing fact is uh their onion this is like an onion that you have to peel is that many FBI agents believe that uh Not only was this not a chance encounter but it was being directed uh by the CIA who was using the
Saudis to try to recruit a member of Al Qaeda the two guys who are just around in the United States when we’re at that middle eastern restaurant right yeah this has been a focus of the you know with your what was it the 13 18 Pages or whatever the hidden Pages we’ve known
About the albayumi meeting uh for a very long time but can you go into a little bit about why the CIA would be pursuing this I’m not sure you know many of our viewers probably weren’t even born on 9 11. um so one of the important things to
For people to step back is there was a big rivalry between the CIA Al-Qaeda unit and the FBI Al-Qaeda unit with no intelligence sharing which resulted in the fact that these two gents were even allowed to come to the United States along with the rest of the 911 hijackers
Despite being known to intelligence authorities without ever flagging it to the FBI this looks like it might have been an intentional cover-up am I right in that set then just lay out some of what I’m talking about for the audience yeah so that’s what the FBI agents believe they believe that um
Uh the CIA knew let’s see I did know that these two guys had arrived in the United States we know that for a fact um what what happened was there were FBI agents who were co-located inside the CIA which means that they were there to report on something that might be of
Interest to the FBI if there’s a CIA cannot operate cannot really conduct spy operations uh against United States citizens but the FBI can so the NCI will tip the FBI uh hey there’s a guy of Interest and so they had this they had two guys of Interest two guys from Al Qaeda uh
The reason why this was of interest to the CIA is they were desperate to get a source inside of Al Qaeda Al Qaeda the terrorist Network and like all terrorist networks are a very closed circuit uh they they rely on very personal Communications bonds of trust very hard
To get a source in there so these two guys arrived at this restaurant and here’s a golden opportunity for the CIA to land a source the FBI also learns that these two guys through the CIA they’ve learned these two guys are in the United States and
They type up a memo to say hey uh FBI headquarters these guys are here and uh they are not allowed to send that memo they are told to stand down that this is not of interest to the FBI and that has uh really left rankles to the
FBI agents who are there and it’s something they can’t let go of and let it’s one of the pieces that led them to believe uh that this was you know an intentional cover-up that they were keeping the FDA out of the loop so that they could recruit these two Al-Qaeda
Hijackers right um you write in your article the theory that the CIA had launched a failed effort to recruit the hijackers through the Saudis has been around for years and was always circumstantial at best but the document obtained by spy talk reveals there is more evidence to support it when former
FBI agent claims the investigator that the CIA possesses top secret operational files in a quote paper trail about that Saudi spy that’s all by Omi who met the hijackers that are still being suppressed a CIA a spokesperson denied the agency was hiding information the FBI declined to comment can you talk to
Us about the significance of that and also what’s the context within which you were able to obtain these documents okay so these documents were filed in Guantanamo um where the 911 defendants are on trial uh they’ve been held there for 20 years uh and they’ve been interpretable Court
Proceedings going on uh this was on the docket it was posted but it was posted almost it was posted completely redacted it was 21 pages of basically Black Sheets um but I heard I read some discussions about this cable about this document story and I was able to obtain a copy
Yeah the thing that really jumped out at me was the thing you just mentioned One agent um who says that the CIA has paper there’s a paper trail uh and you know for years the FBI and others had had believed this theory that there was a
CIA operation that failed that to try to recruit these hijackers but now it seems there’s a paper trail that’s just gotten lost or hidden or whatever and that would show that the CIA had contacted some time without Miami we don’t know what those papers say but operational
Cables means that you know that there was some kind of Sierra operation that ran across albayumi somewhere we don’t know where uh but it’s it’s evidence it’s hard evidence that Congress or someone can obtain uh that would shed light on what really happened on the
Events running up to 9 11. yeah I mean Seth this is where I just come in and you know and I’m just like are are we sure it hasn’t just been destroyed at this point I mean so much was hidden from the 911 Commission We have basically known the Contours of all of
This since 2002. it’s been absolutely not only covered up but many of the initial investigations by Congress they frankly just failed I mean many of them had the broad Contours of what was going on and you know in the midst of Iraq and Sanity and all that basically just let
It go and now finally you know in journalists like you is just picking it up do you think we can ever get to the bottom of this even now years later will it make it easier or harder just because so much of the information is probably gone
Yeah the information is gone but the memories are not and I I don’t think something like this will will stay secret forever it’s too big there’s there’s too much blood on people’s hands or guilt or uh I don’t think it’ll stay secret to forever I think it may be a
Deathbed confession who knows if this did happen um but you know I I I believe that information eventually comes out it just takes time yeah well Seth great job reporting on this I really recommend people go and read through the entire piece which I think lays out the evidence in very compelling
Detail again it’s over at the sub stack spy talk which I also would recommend to folks and we’re really grateful for your time for laying this out for our audience to understand that’s right thank you so much we really appreciate it thanks for having me I really enjoyed
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