Attorney General Todd Blanche said additional Sept. 11 records will be released after review, insisting the government is protecting legitimate classified information rather than Saudi Arabia or other entities as victims’ families renew demands for disclosure.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom.
Attorney General Todd Blanche said Monday that the Trump administration intends to release additional government records related to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, responding to renewed pressure from victims’ families seeking unredacted information about possible Saudi connections to the hijackers.
“There’ll be more records coming out,” Blanche told CBS News. “And so, to the families that are still looking for answers, we are, too. And that’s what we’re going to deliver to them.”
Blanche rejected allegations that the federal government is maintaining secrecy to shield Saudi Arabia or anyone else from scrutiny.
“The one thing that we are not doing, we’re not protecting people,” Blanche said. “The reason that we’re not releasing documents has nothing to do with protecting any government or any entity. It’s just to protect, genuine classified [information].”
The attorney general did not give a timetable for the next release but said officials are reviewing whether material that remains classified still warrants that protection.
“Sometimes there’s documents that are classified and they shouldn’t be,” Blanche said. “And so those are the ones that we’re going to release.”
The issue returned to national attention during Friday’s commemoration marking 25 years since the attacks, when relatives of victims publicly appealed to the administration for additional records concerning what assistance two hijackers may have received after arriving in California.
Some of the families have spent years pursuing litigation against Saudi Arabia, alleging that people connected to the Saudi government provided support to hijackers Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar after the two men arrived in the United States in January 2000.
President Donald Trump addressed the families’ request Sunday while preparing to return to Washington from Ireland.
“I’m going to look at it when I get back,” Trump told reporters. Reuters reported that the request centers particularly on remaining classified material that families believe could shed additional light on possible Saudi connections to the plot.
Much of the families’ attention has focused on Omar al-Bayoumi, a Saudi national who encountered Hazmi and Mihdhar in California and assisted them in finding housing in the San Diego area.
Bayoumi maintained that his meeting with the men was coincidental, but families involved in the lawsuit contend that subsequently disclosed evidence raises questions about the extent of his relationship with the hijackers and his connections to Saudi Arabia.
Evidence obtained through the litigation has included video showing Bayoumi filming entrances to the U.S. Capitol and noting its location relative to the Washington Monument. Other evidence included an airplane drawing and mathematical formula seized from Bayoumi’s apartment in Britain and provided to the FBI in 2001.
A former FBI field investigator later told CBS’ “60 Minutes” that he had not known about the material until it was nearing archival disposition or destruction. After obtaining it, he consulted aviation specialists who said the formula could be used by a pilot to calculate a descent toward a target on the horizon, according to CBS News.
The families’ lawsuit gained significant momentum in August 2025 when U.S. District Judge George B. Daniels rejected Saudi Arabia’s attempt to have the case dismissed.
Daniels determined that the plaintiffs had presented sufficient evidence for their claims to proceed, including allegations involving Bayoumi, Saudi national Fahad al-Thumairy and assistance allegedly provided to Hazmi and Mihdhar after their arrival in California. The decision did not establish Saudi government responsibility for the attacks; it allowed the litigation and factual inquiry to continue.
Saudi Arabia has repeatedly denied that its government participated in the Sept. 11 attacks. Fifteen of the 19 hijackers were Saudi nationals.
The official 9/11 Commission reached a narrower conclusion on the evidence available during its investigation. Its 2004 report said it found no evidence that the Saudi government as an institution or senior Saudi officials individually funded al-Qaida.
The commission added an important qualification, saying its conclusion did not exclude the possibility that charities receiving significant Saudi government sponsorship had diverted money to al-Qaida. The commission also said al-Qaida found substantial fundraising opportunities in Saudi Arabia, while noting that the organization relied on a broader international network of private donations and charities.
The families pursuing the current lawsuit argue that evidence uncovered since the commission completed its work warrants further examination, particularly concerning individuals who interacted directly with Hazmi and Mihdhar.
Blanche’s pledge comes only days after a separate major release of Sept. 11 material by the CIA.
On Friday, CIA Director John Ratcliffe declassified 71 President’s Daily Brief-related intelligence products covering the years leading up to the attacks and the immediate aftermath. Seventy of the documents predated Sept. 11, while one was dated Sept. 12, 2001.
The CIA described the collection as its largest single release of analytical material related to Sept. 11. The documents provide a broader view of what Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush and senior administration officials were being told about Osama bin Laden, al-Qaida and terrorist threats before the attacks.
Among the material are assessments showing that U.S. intelligence agencies had repeatedly warned about al-Qaida and bin Laden before Sept. 11. The collection includes the previously declassified August 2001 briefing titled “Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US,” along with numerous other assessments involving potential terrorist operations.
The 9/11 Commission later characterized the intelligence environment during the summer of 2001 as one in which warning indicators had become unusually intense, though the government failed to assemble the information in a way that prevented the attacks.
Those newly released CIA records are not, however, the same documents being sought by families investigating possible Saudi assistance to the hijackers.
That distinction is central to the renewed demands.
Families are seeking records that could illuminate contacts, assistance and relationships involving the hijackers after they entered the United States, while the CIA release primarily concerns intelligence assessments of al-Qaida and bin Laden provided to presidents and senior policymakers.
Blanche said the administration intends to continue reviewing the remaining material rather than treating existing classification decisions as permanent.
“It’s not as if we’re keeping records from the American people,” Blanche told CBS News.
The unresolved dispute now centers on where legitimate national-security classification ends and information of historical and investigative importance can safely be disclosed.
Twenty-five years after the attacks, families are continuing to press for the latter — particularly records they believe could clarify whether people connected to Saudi Arabia provided assistance to the men who would later participate in the deadliest terrorist attack on U.S. soil.
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