Howell Dodd
Faggert. Alvin Faggert.
New York Judge Tells Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg His Office Must Testify to Congress
theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2023/04/20/new-york-judge-tells-manhattan-da-alvin-bragg-his-office-must-testify-to-congress
April 20, 2023
''Political DA Alvin Bragg was smacked down pretty hard by a New York judge Wednesday, telling his office there is no legal mechanism to avoid accountability and testimony before Congress.''
The DA office took federal funds to prosecute Donald Trump, the DA office is interfering in a federal election, the DA office has openly stated their intentions are politically motivated, and therefore the DA office has no standing to try and avoid federal legislative scrutiny.
As Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil clarified to Braggâs team, she has no standing to block a legislatively authorized congressional subpoena.
New York â [âŚ] âThe sole question before the Court at this time is whether Bragg has a legal basis to quash a congressional subpoena that was issued with a valid legislative purpose. He does not,â Vyskocil wrote in her decision Wednesday.
Bragg, a Democrat, has accused Jordan of pursuing the subpoena to score political points while supporting Trump, a Republican. Vyskocil said the dispute appeared political, but said that did not impact her decision.
âIn our federalist system, elected state and federal actors sometimes engage in political dogfights,â Vyskocil wrote in her order, noting that Bragg is an elected official. âBragg complains of political interference in the local DANY case, but Bragg does not operate outside of the political arena.â
âJordan, in turn, has initiated a political response to what he and some of his constituents view as a manifest abuse of power and nakedly political prosecution, funded (in part) with federal money, that has the potential to interfere with the exercise of presidential duties and with an upcoming federal election,â Vyskocil wrote. âThe Court does not endorse either sideâs agenda.â
The subpoena to Pomerantz demands his appearance before the Judiciary Committee on Thursday. It is unclear if he will appear. A spokesperson for Bragg said Wednesday, âWe respectfully disagree with the District Courtâs decision and are seeking a stay pending appeal.â
Vyskocil denied Braggâs request for a stay Wednesday night. (read more) https://www.cbsnews.com/news/judge-rules-against-manhattan-da-alvin-bragg-mark-pomerantz-house-judiciary-committee/
''April 19, 1775 â A Reminder of This Day in History, The Battle of Lexington''
theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2023/04/19/april-19-1775-a-reminder-of-this-day-in-history-the-battle-of-lexington
April 19, 2023
The ride of Paul Revere is originally attributed to April 18th; however, the majority of the events surrounding it took place overnight, into the wee hours of the morning, then ultimately into mid-day when the Battle of Lexington took place.
I hope yâall enjoy this. I revisit this moment in history each year because it shows how ONE ORDINARY MAN can make a huge difference.
Patriotsâ DayâŚ
A friend once asked: âHow do you celebrate Patriotsâ Day?â Which, perhaps, should spur me to share my own thoughts on this day of consequence.
Many are familiar with the poem Paul Revereâs Ride, however, far fewer know that Paul Revere actually memorialized the events of April 18 and 19, 1775, in an eight-page letter written several years later.
Each Patriotsâ Day I remind myself to read his letter from a copy handed down, and I think about how Paul Revere was really just a common man of otherwise undue significanceâŚ. yet, capable of the task at hand.
To me, everything about the heart of Revere, which you can identify within his own writing, is what defines an American âpatriotâ.
There is no grand prose, there is no outlook of being a person of historical significance, there is just a simple recollection of his involvement, as an ordinary man in extraordinary times.
Unsure if anyone else would enjoy I have tracked down an online source for sharing and provide a transcript below (all misspelling is with the original).
Paul Revere personally recounts his famous ride. â In this undated letter, Paul Revere summarizes the activities surrounding his famous ride on 18 April 1775. He recounts how Dr. Joseph Warren urged him to ride to Lexington to warn John Hancock and Samuel Adams of British troop movements. He arranged to signal the direction of the troops with lanterns from Old North Church and then had friends row him across the Charles River borrowing a horse for his ride.
Revere wrote this letter at the request of Jeremy Belknap, corresponding secretary of the Massachusetts Historical Society. Revere signed his name to the letter but then wrote above it, âA Son of Liberty of the year 1775â, and beside it, âdo not print my name.â Nonetheless, the MHS included Revereâs name when it printed the letter in 1798.
EXPLORE THE DOCUMENT â Or Read the incredible transcript below:
Dear Sir,
PEPE ESCOBAR LIVE
RUSSIA AND CHINA LEADING A MULTIPOLAR WORLD IN REVOLT!
https://www.youtube.com/live/NyEcuc0Mtyg?feature=share
Streamed live on Apr 17, 2023
Geopolitical analyst and journalist Pepe Escobar returns to the program to discuss how the Russia and China-led multipolar world is growing, and fast.
Pepe Escobar: Russia has DEFEATED the Neocon Agenda Despite Ukraine Crisis
https://youtu.be/TszsVRu71mU
Geopolitical analyst and journalist Pepe Escobar discusses the myriad of ways Russia has risen to global prominence despite the neocon regime change effort against it taking place in Ukraine.
NATOstan MSM had zero coverage of Epstein, Twitter Files, the bombing of the Nord Streams and of course the 8-year bombing of civilians in Donbass by Kiev.
Now they've gone bonkers 24/7 on the Pentagon Leaks and the 21-year old patsy.
Psy-op.
As NATO's proxy war collapses.
8:42 AM ¡ Apr 14, 2023
¡
44.8K
https://twitter.com/RealPepeEscobar/status/1646856425493221378
The Empire STOLE billions in Afghan Central Bank funds.
The Chinese, meanwhile, offered a $10 billion deal to Kabul.
-
Repairing the Salang Pass - in only seven months.
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Building another tunnel.
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Processing lithium mined in Afghanistan. Total value: $1 trillion.
9:27 AM ¡ Apr 15, 2023
¡
66.1K View
https://twitter.com/RealPepeEscobar/status/1647230118090162177
>Repairing the Salang Pass
Local Officials Say Repair of Salang Highway Has Begun
tolonews.com/afghanistan-180379
By Rohullah Sangar,
20 OCTOBER 2022
Afghanistan
Meanwhile, drivers complained about the damages to the highway and expressed hope that maintenance will continue.
Officials of the Department of Preservation and Maintenance of Salang Highway announced that repairs have begun on Salang highway.
They said that work has been delayed because of the weather and because daily traffic cannot be diverted because there is no alternate route.
âThe low temperatures make our work slow and we cannot close the highway for cars and that is also a big challenge for our work,â said Mohammad Yaqoob, who is in charge of the highwayâs management.
Officials of the Payman Kaar promised that they will reconstruct this highway in such a way that it is weather-resistant.
âWe carry out our work according to the standards of the Ministry of Public Works,â said Mohammad Shafi, head of the project.
Meanwhile, drivers complained about the damages to the highway and expressed hope that maintenance will continue.
âWe face a lot of challenges from rain and snow and we call on the government to reconstruct this highway,â said Shafiq, a driver.
âDuring our travel we face various challenges, and we hope it is rebuilt as soon as possible,â said Fatih Ullah, a driver.
According to information from the Ministry of Public Works, the reconstruction of this highway will be complete in one year.
The Salang Pass (Pashto: ; Dari: Kutal-i Salang, el. 3,878 m or 12,723 ft) is the primary mountain pass connecting northern Afghanistan with Parwan Province, with onward connections to Kabul Province, southern Afghanistan, and to the Pakistani province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.[1] Located on the border of Parwan Province and Baghlan Province, it is just to the East of the Kushan Pass, and both of them were of great importance in early times as they provided the most direct connections between the Kabul region with northern Afghanistan or Tokharistan. The Salang River originates nearby and flows south.
The pass crosses the Hindu Kush mountains but is now bypassed through the Salang Tunnel, which runs underneath it at a height of about 3,400 m. The tunnel was built by engineers and construction crews from the Soviet Union in 1958 â 1964 as part of a wide-ranging infrastructure build out in Afghanistan carried out by the USSR. During the Afghan civil war it was blown up in 1997 by forces of Ahmad Shah Massoud in order to prevent Taliban fighters from coming through it. In 2002 the Russian Ministry Of Emergency Situations (RMES) organized the work to rebuild the tunnel and the repairs were completed within a month.[2]
It links Charikar and Kabul in the South with Mazar-i-Sharif and Kunduz in the North. Before the road and tunnel were built, the main route between Kabul and northern Afghanistan was via the Shibar Pass, a much longer route which took three days.[1]
The road through the pass has carried heavy military traffic in recent conflicts and is in very bad repair.[1]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salang_Pass
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salang_Pass
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salang_Tunnel
Salang Tunnel
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salang_Tunnel
Not to be confused with Salang Pass.
Coordinates: 35°19â˛19.5âłN 69°1â˛37.0âłE
The Salang Tunnel (Dari: TĹŤnel-e SÄlang, Pashto: Da SÄlang TĹŤnel) is a 2.67-kilometre-long (1.66 mi) tunnel in Afghanistan, located at the Salang Pass in the Hindu Kush mountains, between the Parwan and Baghlan provinces, about 90 kilometers north of the capital city of Kabul. Nearly 3,200 m (10,500 ft) above sea level, it was completed by the Soviet Union in 1964 and connects northern Afghanistan with the capital, Kabul, and southern parts of the country. The Salang Tunnel is of strategic importance[1] and is the only pass going in a northâsouth direction to remain in use throughout the year, although it is often closed during the cold winters by heavy snowfall.[2]
Overview
The tunnel represents the major northâsouth connection in Afghanistan, cutting travel time from 72 hours to 10 hours and saving about 300 kilometres (190 mi). It reaches an altitude of about 3,400 metres (11,200 ft) and is 2.6 kilometres (1.6 mi) long. The width and height of the tunnel tube are 7 metres (23 ft). Other sources say that the tunnel is no more than 6.1 metres (20 ft) wide at the base and 4.9 metres (16 ft) high, but only in the centre.[3]
It was noted in 2010 that about 16,000 vehicles pass through the Salang Tunnel daily.[4] Other reports say that the tunnel was designed for 1,000 vehicles a day, but is now handling seven to ten thousand vehicles a day.[3]
It forms part of Highway 1 (Ring Road).
History
In 1955, Afghanistan and the Soviet Union signed an agreement to initiate joint development of the Salang road, initially via the historic Salang Pass route. The tunnel was opened in 1964 and provided a year-round connection from the northern parts of the country to Kabul. The tunnel was the highest road tunnel in the world until 1973, when the United States built the Eisenhower Tunnel â just slightly higher and slightly longer â in Colorado in the Rocky Mountains.
A ventilation system was built in 1976.
During the SovietâAfghan War, the tunnel was a crucial military link to the south, yet was prone to ambushes by the Afghan mujahideen fighters.
After the 1989 Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, maintenance suffered, and eventually, in the course of combat between the Northern Alliance and the Taliban in 1997â1998, the tunnel's entrances, lighting and ventilation system were destroyed, so that it could only be transited by foot in the dark. After the overthrow of the Taliban-led government in the 2001 US invasion of Afghanistan, a joint effort between agencies from Afghanistan, France, Russia, the United States and others cleared the mines and debris and reopened the tunnel on January 19, 2002.[2]
In the early 2010s it was still receiving ISAF funding for repair and renovation.[5]
In 2012, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) made a technical study for a new tunnel reaching from the Olang region in Parwan province (about 6km south) to DoShakh in Baghlan province (about 10km north), going through the mountains of the Hindu Kush, further than the current tunnel. The design shortened travel distance by 30 to 40 km (19 to 25 mi).[6]
= = 2002 avalanche
Several weeks after reopening several hundred people were trapped in the tunnel due to an avalanche at its southern end. While most people were rescued, some died from asphyxiation and freezing. After further rehabilitation in July 2004, the tunnel could carry two-way traffic.
https://youtu.be/LUV0JOFB8ts
216,182 views Dec 7, 2022 #Theory #Politician #BobbyKennedy
Brainwashing, mind-altering drugs, and rogue espionage: it sounds like something out of a James Bond flick, but according to conspiracy theorists, it was all behind the killing of a major American politician.
#BobbyKennedy #Theory #Politician
The assassination itself | 0:00
Confusing details | 1:07
A possible cover-up | 1:52
The fall guy | 2:40
Brainwashing | 3:35
The CIA vs. RFK | 4:39
CIA operatives on the scene | 5:43
Robert Maheu | 6:38
The contract agent | 7:29
Covering the exits | 8:38
Admissions of guilt | 9:28
https://www.grunge.com/1110330/the-bobby-kennedy-assassination-theory-that-would-change-everything/
Bombshell filing: 9/11 hijackers were CIA recruits
thegrayzone.com/2023/04/18/9-11-hijackers-cia-recruits
Kit KlarenbergApril 19, 2023
At least two 9/11 hijackers had been recruited into a joint CIA-Saudi intelligence operation that was covered up at the highest level, according to an explosive new court filing.
A newly-released court filing raises grave questions about the relationship between Alec Station, a CIA unit set up to track Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden and his associates, and two 9/11 hijackers leading up to the attacks, which was subject to a coverup at the highest levels of the FBI.
Obtained by SpyTalk, the filing is a 21-page declaration by Don Canestraro, a lead investigator for the Office of Military Commissions, the legal body overseeing the cases of 9/11 defendants. It summarizes classified government discovery disclosures, and private interviews he conducted with anonymous high-ranking CIA and FBI officials. Many agents who spoke to Canestraro headed up Operation Encore, the Bureauâs aborted, long-running probe into Saudi government connections to the 9/11 attack.
Despite conducting multiple lengthy interviews with a range of witnesses, producing hundreds of pages of evidence, formally investigating several Saudi officials, and launching a grand jury to probe a Riyadh-run US-based support network for the hijackers, Encore was abruptly terminated in 2016. This was purportedly due to a byzantine intra-FBI bust-up over investigative methods.
When originally released in 2021 on the Officeâs public court docket, every part of the document was redacted except an âunclassifiedâ marking. Given its explosive contents, it is not difficult to see why: as Canestraroâs investigation concluded, at least two 9/11 hijackers had been recruited either knowingly or unknowingly into a joint CIA-Saudi intelligence operation which may have gone awry.
âA 50/50 chanceâ of Saudi involvement
âA 50/50 chanceâ of Saudi involvement
In 1996, Alec Station was created under the watch of the CIA. The initiative was supposed to comprise a joint investigative effort with the FBI. However, FBI operatives assigned to the unit soon found they were prohibited from passing any information to the Bureauâs head office without the CIAâs authorization, and faced harsh penalties for doing so. Efforts to share information with the FBIâs equivalent unit â the I-49 squad based in New York â were repeatedly blocked.
In late 1999, with âthe system blinking redâ about an imminent large-scale Al Qaeda terror attack inside the US, the CIA and NSA were closely monitoring an âoperational cadreâ within an Al Qaeda cell that included the Saudi nationals Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar. The pair would purportedly go on to hijack American Airlines Flight 77, which crashed into the Pentagon on 9/11.
Al-Hazmi and al-Midhar had attended an Al Qaeda summit that took place between January 5th and 8th 2000, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The meeting was secretly photographed and videotaped by local authorities at Alec Stationâs request although, apparently, no audio was captured. En route, Mihdhar transited through Dubai, where CIA operatives broke into his hotel room and photocopied his passport. It showed that he possessed a multi-entry visa to the US.
A contemporaneous internal CIA cable stated this information was immediately passed to the FBI âfor further investigation.â In reality, Alec Station not only failed to inform the Bureau of Mihdharâs US visa, but also expressly forbade two FBI agents assigned to the unit from doing so.
â[I said] âweâve got to tell the Bureau about this. These guys clearly are badâŚweâve got to tell the FBI.â And then [the CIA] said to me, âno, itâs not the FBIâs case, not the FBIâs jurisdictionâ,â Mark Rossini, one of the FBI agents in question, has alleged. âIf we had picked up the phone and called the Bureau, I wouldâve been violating the law. IâŚwouldâve been removed from the building that day. I wouldâve had my clearances suspended, and I would be gone.â
On January 15th, Hazmi and Mihdhar entered the US through Los Angeles International Airport, just weeks after the foiled Millennium plot. Omar al-Bayoumi, a Saudi government âghost employeeâ immediately met them at an airport restaurant. After a brief conversation, Bayoumi helped them find an apartment near his own in San Diego, co-signed their lease, set them up bank accounts, and gifted $1,500 towards their rent. The three would have multiple contacts moving forward.
In interviews with Operation Encore investigators years later, Bayoumi alleged his run-in with the two would-be hijackers was mere happenstance. His extraordinary practical and financial support was, he claimed, simply charitable, motivated by sympathy for the pair, who could barely speak English and were unfamiliar with Western culture.
The Bureau disagreed, concluding Bayoumi was a Saudi spy, who handled a number of Al Qaeda operatives in the US. They also considered there to be a â50/50 chanceâ he â and by extension Riyadh â had detailed advance knowledge of the 9/11 attacks.
That remarkable finding wasnât known publicly until two decades later, when a tranche of Operation Encore documents were declassified upon the Biden administrationâs orders, and it was completely ignored by the mainstream media. Don Canestraroâs declaration now reveals FBI investigators went even further in their assessments.
A Bureau special agent, dubbed âCS-3â in the document, stated Bayoumiâs contact with the hijackers and support thereafter âwas done at the behest of the CIA through the Saudi intelligence service.â Alec Stationâs explicit purpose was to ârecruit Al-Hazmi and Al-Mihdhar via a liaison relationshipâ, with the assistance of Riyadhâs General Intelligence Directorate.
A most âunusualâ CIA unit
A most âunusualâ CIA unit
Alec Stationâs formal remit was to track bin Laden, âcollect intelligence on him, run operations against him, disrupt his finances, and warn policymakers about his activities and intentions.â These activities would naturally entail enlisting informants within Al Qaeda.
Nonetheless, as several high level sources told Canestraro, it was extremely âunusualâ for such an entity to be involved in gathering intelligence and recruiting assets. The US-based unit was run by CIA analysts, who do not typically manage human assets. Legally, that work is the exclusive preserve of case officers âtrained in covert operationsâ and based overseas.
âCS-10â, a CIA case officer within Alec Station, concurred with the proposition that Hazmi and Mihdhar enjoyed a relationship with the CIA through Bayoumi, and was baffled that the unit was tasked with attempting to penetrate Al Qaeda in the first place. They felt it âwould be nearly impossibleâŚto develop informants insideâ the group, given the âvirtualâ station was based in a Langley basement, âseveral thousand miles from the countries where Al Qaeda was suspected of operating.â
âCS-10â further testified that they âobserved other unusual activitiesâ at Alec Station. Analysts within the unit âwould direct operations to case officers in the field by sending the officers cables instructing them to do a specific tasking,â which was âa violation of CIA procedures.â Analysts ânormally lacked the authority to direct a case officer to do anything.â
âCS-11â, a CIA operations specialist posted to Alec Station âsometime prior to the 9/11 attacksâ said they likewise âobserved activity that appeared to be outside normal CIA procedures.â Analysts within the unit âmostly stuck to themselves and did not interact frequentlyâ with others. When communicating with one another through internal cables, they also used operational pseudonyms, which âCS-11â described as peculiar, as they were not working undercover, âand their employment with the CIA was not classified information.â
The unitâs unusual operational culture may explain some of the stranger decisions made during this period vis a vis Al Qaeda informants. In early 1998, while on a CIA mission to penetrate Londonâs Islamist scene, a joint FBI-CIA informant named Aukai Collins received a stunning offer: bin Laden himself wanted him to go to Afghanistan so they could meet.
Collins relayed the request to his superiors. While the FBI was in favor of infiltrating Al Qaedaâs base, his CIA handler nixed the idea, saying, âthere was no way the US would approve an American operative going undercover into Bin Ladenâs camps.â
Similarly, in June 2001, CIA and FBI analysts from Alec Station met with senior Bureau officials, including representatives of its own Al Qaeda unit. The CIA shared three photos of individuals who attended the Kuala Lumpur meeting 18 months earlier, including Hazmi and Mihdhar. However, as an FBI counter-terror officer codenamed âCS-15â recalled, the dates of the photos and key details about the figures they depicted were not revealed. Instead, the analysts simply asked if the FBI âknew the identities of the individuals in the photos.â
Another FBI official present, âCS-12â, offers an even more damning account. The Alec Station analysts not only failed to offer biographical information, but falsely implied one of the individuals might be Fahd Al-Quso, a suspect in the bombing of the USS Cole. Whatâs more, they outright refused to answer any questions related to the photographs. Nonetheless, it was confirmed that no system was in place to alert the FBI if any of the three entered the US â a âstandard investigative techniqueâ for terror suspects.
Given Hazmi and Mihdhar appeared to be simultaneously working for Alec Station in some capacity, the June 2001 meeting may well have been a dangle. No intelligence value could be extracted from inquiring whether the Bureau knew who their assets were, apart from ascertaining if the FBIâs counter-terror team was aware of their identities, physical appearances, and presence in the US.
Quite some coverup
Quite some coverup
Another of Canestraroâs sources, a former FBI agent who went by âCS-23,â testified that after 9/11, FBI headquarters and its San Diego field office quickly learned of âBayoumiâs affiliation with Saudi intelligence and subsequently the existence of the CIAâs operation to recruitâ Hazmi and Mihdhar.
However, âsenior FBI officials suppressed investigationsâ into these matters. âCS-23â alleged, furthermore, that Bureau agents testifying before the Joint Inquiry into 9/11 âwere instructed not to reveal the full extent of Saudi involvement with Al-Qaeda.â
The US intelligence community would have had every reason to shield Riyadh from scrutiny and consequences for its role in the 9/11 attacks, as it was then one of its closest allies. But the FBIâs eager complicity in Alec Stationâs coverup may have been motivated by self-interest, as one of its own was intimately involved in the unitâs effort to recruit Hazmi and Mihdhar, and conceal their presence in the US from relevant authorities.
âCS-12â, who attended the June 2001 meeting with Alec Station, told Canestraro that they âcontinued to press FBI Headquarters for further information regarding the subjects in the photographsâ over that summer. On August 23rd, they stumbled upon an âelectronic communicationâ from FBI headquarters, which identified Hazmi and Mihdhar, and noted they were in the US.
âCS-12â then contacted the FBI analyst within Alec Station who authored the communication. The conversation quickly became âheatedâ, with the analyst ordering them to delete the memo âimmediatelyâ as they were not authorized to view it. While unnamed in the declaration, the FBI analyst in question was Dina Corsi.
The next day, on a conference call between âCS-12â, Corsi, and the FBIâs bin Laden unit chief, âofficials at FBI headquartersâ explicitly told âCS-12â to âstand downâ and âcease lookingâ for Mihdhar, as the Bureau intended to open an âintelligence gathering investigationâ on him. The next day, âCS-12â emailed Corsi, stating bluntly âsomeone is going to dieâ unless Mihdhar was pursued criminally.
It was surely no coincidence that two days later, on August 26th, Alec Station finally informed the FBI that Hazmi and Mihdhar were in the US. By then, the pair had entered the final phase of preparations for the impending attacks. If a criminal probe had been opened, they could have been stopped in their tracks. Instead, as foreshadowed by the officials in contact with âCS-12,â an intelligence investigation was launched which hindered any search efforts.
In the days immediately after the 9/11 attacks, âCS-12â and other New York-based FBI agents participated in another conference call with Bureau headquarters. During the conversation, they learned Hazmi and Mihdhar were named on Flight 77âs manifest. One analyst on the line ran the pairâs names through âcommercial databases,â quickly finding them and their home address listed in San Diegoâs local phone directory. It turned out they had been living with an FBI informant.
âCS-12â soon contacted Corsi âregarding information on the hijackers.â She responded by providing a photograph from the same surveillance operation that produced the three pictures presented at the June 2001 meeting between Alec Station and FBI agents; they depicted Walid bin Attash, a lead suspect in Al Qaedaâs 1998 East Africa US Embassy bombings and its attack on the USS Cole.
Corsi was unable to explain why the photo was not shown to FBI agents earlier. If it had been, âCS-12â claims they would have âimmediately linkedâ Hazmi and Mihdhar to bin Attash, which âwould have shifted from an intelligence based investigation into a criminal investigation.â The FBIâs New York field office could have then devoted its âfull resourcesâ to finding the hijackers before the fateful day of September 11, 2001.
Alec Station operatives fail upwards
Alec Station operatives fail upwards
Alec Stationâs tireless efforts to protect its Al Qaeda assets raises the obvious question of whether Hazmi and Mihdhar, and possibly other hijackers, were in effect working for the CIA on the day of 9/11.
The real motives behind the CIAâs stonewalling may never be known. But it appears abundantly clear that Alec Station did not want the FBI to know about or interfere in its secret intelligence operation. If the unitâs recruitment of Hazmi and Mihdhar was purely dedicated to information gathering, rather than operational direction, it is incomprehensible that the FBI had not been apprised of it, and was instead actively misdirected.
Several FBI sources consulted by Canestraro speculated that the CIAâs desperation to penetrate Al Qaeda prompted it to grant Alec Station the power to recruit assets, and pressured it to do so. But if this were truly the case, then why did Langley refuse the opportunity to send Aukai Collins â a proven deep cover asset who had infiltrated several Islamist gangs â to penetrate bin Ladenâs network in Afghanistan?
One alternative explanation is that Alec Station, a powerful rogue CIA team answerable and accountable to no one, sought to infiltrate the terror group for its own sinister purposes, without the authorization and oversight usually required by Langley in such circumstances. Given that Collins was a joint asset shared with the FBI, he could not be trusted to participate in such a sensitive black operation.
No member of Alec Station has been punished in any way for the supposed âintelligence failuresâ that allowed 9/11 to go ahead. In fact, they have been rewarded. Richard Blee, the unitâs chief at the time of the attacks, and his successor Alfreda Frances Bikowsky, both joined the CIAâs operations division, and became highly influential figures in the so-called war on terror. Corsi, for her part, was promoted at the FBI, eventually rising to the rank of Deputy Assistant Director for Intelligence.
In a perverse twist, the Senate Intelligence Committeeâs report on the CIAâs torture program found that Bikowsky had been a key player in the agencyâs black site machinations, and one of their chief public apologists. It is increasingly clear that the program was specifically concerned with eliciting false testimony from suspects in order to justify and expand the US war on terror.
The publicâs understanding of the 9/11 attacks is heavily informed by testimonies delivered by CIA torture victims under the most extreme duress imaginable. And Bikowsky, a veteran of the Alec Station that ran cover for at least two would-be 9/11 hijackers, had been in charge of interrogating the alleged perpetrators of the attacks.
The veteran FBI deep cover agent Aukai Collins concluded his memoir with a chilling reflection which was only reinforced by Don Canestraroâs bombshell declaration:
âI was very mistrustful about the fact that bin Ladenâs name was mentioned literally hours after the attack⌠I became very skeptical about anything anybody said about what happened, or who did it. I thought back to when I was still working for them and we had the opportunity to enter Bin Ladenâs camp. Something just hadnât smelled rightâŚTo this day Iâm unsure who was behind September 11, nor can I even guess⌠Someday the truth will reveal itself, and I have a feeling that people wonât like what they hear.â
end
''Exclusive: FBI Agents Accuse CIA of 9/11 Coverup''
''spytalk.co/p/exclusive-fbi-agents-accuse-cia-ofâ
Previously unreported interviews filed in court claim CIA is hiding information relating to a failed 'recruitment' effort
UPDATED
LIKE MANY GREAT SPY STORIES, this one begins with a brief, mundane scene whose significance only becomes apparent later on. Around lunchtime on February 1, 2000, a man dropped a piece of paper near a table in a Middle Eastern restaurant outside Los Angeles and paused long enough to strike up a conversation with two Arabic-speaking men dining nearby. It would take FBI agents nearly 20 years to understand the full meaning of that small event.
The man who dropped the piece of paper was Omar al-Bayoumi, a Saudi intelligence asset, recently declassified FBI documents show. And the two Arabic-speaking men with whom he struck up a conversation with were Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar, the first two future 9/11 hijackers to arrive in the United States. Was this meeting, as the alleged agent later claimed to investigators, mere happenstance?
Or was it an intelligence operation being conducted on U.S. soil? It was an intelligence operation, according to a previously-unreported court filing SpyTalk has obtained that corroborates and expands our understanding of this extraordinary meeting, which took place just as the 9/11 plot was taking shape.
The court filing details a five-year inquiry by an investigator for the Guantanamo Military Commission into whether the meeting at the Mediterranean Gourmet restaurant was an operation that involved not only Saudi agents but CIA officers as well.
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 SpyTalk reveals there is more evidence to support it. One former FBI agent claimed to the investigator that the CIA possesses top secret âoperationalâ files and a âpaper trailâ about the Saudi spy who met the hijackers that are still being suppressed.
A CIA spokesperson denied that the agency was hiding information. The FBI declined to comment.
'' The revelations were found in a 21-page court document filed in 2021 at the Guantanamo Bay naval base in Cuba where the cases of the 9/11 defendants are being heard. The document was on the public docket but went unreported because it was completely redacted except for an unclassified marking. Spytalk obtained an unredacted copy. ''
'' The legal filing consists of summaries of interviews with anonymous FBI agents, 9/11 Commission staff, and others who investigated the attacks on New York and Washington. It was compiled by Don Canestraro, an investigator for the Office of Military Commissions, as the court hearing the cases of the 9/11 defendants is formally known. Canestraro previously served for more than two decades as an agent with the Drug Enforcement Administration. ''
Canestraroâs filing is chock-full of new details about the multiple investigations into 9/11. And it follows the release last year of declassified FBI documents that offered an unprecedented portrait of Saudi intelligence operations inside America. Read together, this new information raises issues that go to the heart of Americaâs fraught relationship with the oil-rich Kingdomâand the 9/11 attacks.
Four unnamed former FBI agents involved in the 9/11 investigation told Canestraro they believed the CIA was covering up an operation on U.S. soil to penetrate Al Qaeda. The most explosive allegations come from a former FBI agent who spoke to Canestraro in June 2021. The former agent, identified only as CS-23, was described as having âextensive knowledge of counterterrorism and counterintelligence matters.â
CS-23 pointedly described the meeting between the Saudi agent and the hijackers at the Middle Eastern Gourmet restaurant as part of âan operation directed by the Central Intelligence Agency,â and indicated that the CIA has âoperationalâ files on Bayoumi that predated 9/11.
Before 9/11, according to CS-23, the CIA was determined to get a human source inside Osama bin Ladenâs terror network, and the arrival of two members of Al Qaeda in Southern California in January 2000 offered an unprecedented opportunity. The CIA is legally barred from collecting information on U.S. citizens âbut its foreign intelligence collection mission can be conducted anywhere," according to the agency website.
Collaborators
After 9/11, CS-23 told Canestraro, âFBI officials in San Diego and at FBI headquarters became aware of both Bayoumiâs affiliation with Saudi intelligence and subsequently the existence of the CIAâs operation to recruit Hazmi and Mihdhar through Bayoumi.â Senior FBI officials âsuppressed investigationsâ into the matter, C-23 said.
CS-23âs account could not be independently verified. Canestraro said all the formerCIA officersand FBI agents he spoke with were granted anonymity and Canestraro said he could not put SpyTalk in touch with CS-23 without violating attorney-client privilege.
Canestraro said his investigation would not have been possible without initial assurances of confidentiality. The FBI has tried to silence at least one former agent who spoke publicly about Saudi Arabia and the 9/11 investigation. In a 2019letter, a copy of which was obtained by SpyTalk, the bureau reminded the agent of the duty of confidentiality that he agreed to when he joined the bureau and instructed him to clear all future disclosures with headquarters.
The starting point for this investigation, Canestraro wrote, was Omar al-Bayoumi, the Saudi man who met the two hijackers in the Middle Eastern Gourmet restaurant on Venice Boulevard in Culver City. Bayoumi played a critical role in helping the two newly-arrived hijackers settle in the United States. He encouraged the two men to come to San Diego and once there, he helped them open bank accounts, found them an apartment, paid their security deposit, co-signed their lease, and threw a welcoming party for them. He also introduced the hijackers to Anwar al-Aulaqi, then an imam at a mosque in San Diego, California who âreportedly served as their spiritual advisor during their time in San Diego,â according to the joint congressional committeeâs report on 9/11. Aulaqi was killed in a drone strike in Yemen in 2011.
Lawyers for the 9/11 defendants in Guantanamo have asked a judge to order the CIA, the FBI, Congress, and the 9/11 Commission to turn over all documents relating to Bayoumi. âPeople in a position to know have suggested that the CIA concealed information about Hazmi and Mihdharâs travel because the CIA wanted to recruit them through Saudi intelligence, which would go a long way to support the defense theory that the United States and Al Qaeda are not at war,â defense lawyers wrote in a motion to compel discovery. Canestraroâs affidavit was attached to the motion. A judge in the slow-moving military commissions has still not yet ruled on the motion.
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Bayoumi was a subject of FBI investigations that stretched over more than 20 years, and he was long suspected to have been a Saudi intelligence agent. But he was certainly no James Bond. He was frequently spotted videotaping events at the local mosque. Even one of the hijackers thought Bayoumi was a spy, according to the 9/11 Commission. He lived with his family in San Diego on a student visa, despite not attending classes, and he received a salary from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for a job he never performed. But Bayoumi told FBI agents in Riyadh in 2003 that the claim that he was a spy was âabsolutely not true.â Bayoumi told the 9/11 Commission that Hazmiâs description of him as a spy âhurt him very much.â
Robert McFadden, a former senior counterterrorism agent with the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, tells SpyTalk he understood Bayoumiâs complaint. Bayoumi âwas likely a useful, marginally employed, Saudi government fixer and facilitator for Riyadh, who 'took care' of idiot expats like the Hazmi brothers and Khalid al-Mihdhar, who had never traveled to the U.S. before or had much English,â McFadden said. âMost importantly, a Bayoumi would keep an eye on any known or suspected Saudi opposition activity.â
Bayoumi appeared on the FBIâs radar before 9/11, when he attracted suspicion from his San Diego apartment manager. According to CS-23, FBI special agents in San Diego queried the CIA as part of that inquiry. The agency reported that it had no information on Bayoumi. That was a âfalsehood,â C-23 told Canestraro in June 2001.
âC-23 stated the CIA maintained âoperationalâ files on Omar al-Bayoumi,â Canestraro wrote. âCS-23 explained to me that âoperationalâ files are those files related to an intelligence operation conducted by a given agency. CS-23 further explained that he/she was aware of a âpaper trailâ concerning al-Bayoumi.â
Canestraro says CS-23âs account suggests the CIA hid critical evidence from the FBI about an agent of Saudi intelligence. âThe CIA did not share all it knew about Bayoumi with the FBI both prior to and after the 9/11 attacks,â he told SpyTalk. âCertainly, this impacted the FBI's investigations into Bayoumi.â
A CIA spokesperson strongly disputed that claim, but stopped short of claiming that such files do not exist.
âThe allegation that CIA is âhidingâ information related to the attacks of September11th, 2001, is false,â the CIA spokesperson tells SpyTalk. âCIA has fully complied with Executive Order 14040 of September 2021, which mandated the review and, wherever possible, public release of government information âcollected and generated in the United States Governmentâs investigationâ of the attacks. In keeping with the executive order, CIA declassified the maximum amount of information possible in hundreds of documents, which are now publicly available online.â
A veteran CIA case officer involved in the 9/11 investigation tells SpyTalk that there may very well be some information on Bayoumi in a file somewhere in the agency. The CIA has contacts with many people, all over the world, and case officers are required to document them, this person said. But the possibility that a CIA officer met Bayoumi once years ago doesnât mean anything on its own, he said, and FBI agents making a big deal out of that are just trying to shift blame away from the bureauâs failure to heed the pre-9/11 warnings of its own agents. An FBI agent in Phoenix, for example, requested an investigation of terrorists training at U.S. flight schools. Another agent in Minnesota wrote a memo theorizing that Zacarias Moussaoui, now serving life in prison for his role in the attacks, seemed like a terrorist planning to âfly a plane into the World Trade Center.â Both were ignored.
âFor them to say weâre holding out on them nowâfuck you,â the CIA veteran says. âThatâs what I want to say to all of you: Fuck you, assholes. Three thousand people dead and 22 years later, and youâre still trying to wash the stain off the FBI.â
Another CIA veteran told SpyTalk he found the recruiting theory laughable: The Saudis would never allow the CIA to recruit one of their own citizens. But he said he wouldnât put anything past the personnel in Alec Station, as the CIAâs bin Laden station was knownâ including going out of channels to try to recruit Hazmi and Mihdhar.
Rogue Operators
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Rogue Operators
(It wouldnât be the first or last time: Years after former FBI special agent and private investigator Robert Levinson went missing in Kish Island, Iran, in 2007 for example, his family learned that he had gone âat the direction of certain CIA analysts who had no authority to run operations overseas,â according to a Washington Post investigation. The CIA had told the Senate Intelligence Committee and FBI that the spy agency âhad nothing to do with him going to Iran.â
Two former CIA case officers who spoke to Canestraro saw Alec Station as a place where the normal rules didnât apply. Located in a northern Virginia office outside CIA headquarters, Alec Station was stuffed with analysts who saw themselves as operatives. Even though they were not undercover, the analysts would refer to each other by their code names around the office. Despite their limited operational training, the analysts at Alec Station would also direct operations in the field and even went so far as to block one operation targeting Al Qaeda, according to Canestraroâs interviews.
âCS-10,â a 25-year CIA veteran, âtold me that the analysts at UBL station felt that they could undertake operations as easily as the case officers even though they had not been trained in covert intelligence-gathering techniques,â Canestraro wrote.
The other former CIA case officer, CS-11, told Canestraro that âit would have been difficultâ for any of the analysts âto run an operation out of UBL Station without approval from other CIA officers.â
The theory about a failed CIA recruitment effort surfaced in Lawrence Wrightâs Pulitzer Prize-winning 2007 book, The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11. Mark Rossini, a former FBI agent detailed to the CIA, was the first former insider to go public with his belief that the spy agency sought to use Bayoumi to recruit the hijackers. Richard Clarke, the National Security Council counterterrorism coordinator in the Clinton and Bush White Houses, followed with a 2016 article claiming that a major element of the 9/11 tragedy remained unrevealed. Clarke wrote that he too believed that the CIA had used Bayoumi to approach the hijackers in what he called a âfalse flagâ operation.
Clarke tells SpyTalkthat he began to suspect something was amiss when CIA Director George Tenet paid a personal visit to his office in the White House after 9/11. The CIAâs inspector general was examining whether the agency had done enough to stop the attacks. Tenet, accompanied by two of his lieutenants, Cofer Black and Richard Blee, asked Clarke to write a letter to the inspector general, John Helgerson, praising the agencyâs performance. Clarke was a little hesitant to write a letter on Tenetâs behalf but he eventually did say something along the lines of what they asked, he told SpyTalk.
What struck Clarke as odd was how nervous the CIA director seemed. âWhat was shocking to me was hereâs the CIA director really worried about a CIA inspector general investigation into him and his relationship to 9/11,â Clarke says. âThatâs one of the reasons Iâve often thought that my recruitment theory was probably right.â
Philip Zelikow, former executive director of the 9/11 Commission, has said there was no evidence to support such a theory. âIf the ârecruitment theoryâ posited by Clarke and Rossini were true, there would be evidence of a recruitment effortâsome CIA attempt to locate and contact al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi. There is no such evidence. Nor was there any evidence of a recruitment plan or even the consideration of one,â Zelikow wrote in a 2017 article. (Zelikow did not return emails from SpyTalk.)
Several former FBI agents told Canestraro that the alleged recruitment effort explained one of the most glaring intelligence-sharing failures in the runup to 9/11: The CIAâs failure to notify the FBI upon learning that the hijackers were headed to the United States. Not only did the CIA fail to take the simple step of putting the hijackersâ names on a watchlist, it also blocked FBI agents detailed to the CIA from sending a memo informing FBI headquarters. Nineteen months later Mihdhar and Hazmi were part of a team that hijacked American Airlines Flight 77 and crashed it into the Pentagon.
End Run
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End Run
Rossini was an eyewitness to the CIAâs efforts to prevent his headquarters from learning that Mihdhar had a multiple-entry U.S. visa. (Rossini declined to comment for the record for this story.)But in interviews in 2015 and a brief memoir that was published online, Rossini revealed that a CIA officer in the agencyâs bin Laden station ordered him in early 2000 to keep silent. It was ânot a matter for the FBI,â Rossini says he was told. âThe next Al Qaeda attack is going to be in Southeast Asia, and if and when we want to let the FBI know we will and you are not to say anything.â Rossini did not name the CIA officer, but she has previously been identifiedas Michael Anne Casey.
The CIAâs Inspector General concluded that the agencyâs failure to pass the information on Hazmi and Midharâs arrival to the FBI until August 2001 was not a mistake borne out of a reluctance to share it but rather one of poor implementation, guidance, and oversight of processes designed to foster exchanges. An anonymous CIA officerâsubsequently identified as Tom Wilshire, a former deputy chief of the bin Laden stationâtold the joint congressional committee investigating 9/11, âSomething apparently was dropped somewhere and we don't know where that was.â
SpyTalk was able to identify some of Canestraroâs sources. Rossiniâs previous statements fit those of the former FBI agent identified in Canestraroâs filing as âCS-3.â The statement of âCS-4â matches the account in Newsweek of James Bernazzani, who oversaw the FBI contingent in the CIAâs Counterterrorist Center and described how he rushed word on Hazmi and Midhar down to headquarters as soon as he learned of it. (Bernazzani did not return messages left seeking comment.)
Rossiniâs statement to Canestraro adds a new wrinkle to his version of events. A few years after 9/11, Rossini says he was at CIA headquarters, when he heard James Pavitt, the CIA deputy director for operations, and Director George Tenet discuss the 9/11 Commissionâs request to speak with Michael Anne Casey, the CIA officer who instructed him that Mihdharâs visa was ânot a matter for the FBI.â Pavitt told Tenet that he was âgladâ the CIA had kept Casey away from the 9/11 Commission, Rossini said, and Tenet agreed that it was a good idea. âCS-3 stated that the conversation indicated two CIA officials had conspired to obstruct the 9/11 Commission,â Canestraro wrote. (The CIA did not respond to questions about the purported conversation. Tenet did not return a message left seeking comment. Pavitt died last December.)
Rossini left the FBI 2008 after pleading guilty to criminally accessing an FBI database for information that was later used by Hollywood private eye Anthony Pellicano. He pleaded not guilty last year in a federal corruption case involving a former governor of Puerto Rico.
Canestraroâs court filing in Guantanamo also raises long-simmering questions about the Saudi government and 9/11. Fifteen of the 19 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia. Was the Saudi government connected in any way to the terrorist plot? Did any Saudi government officials have prior knowledge of the plan to attack New York and Washington?
The U.S. intelligence community has been grappling with those questions for years. The CIA Inspector Generalâs 9/11 Review Team reported in 2005 that it found no evidence that the Saudi government knowingly and willingly supported Al Qaeda. But newly declassified documents reveal that, at a minimum, the Saudi government knew far more about Hazmi and Mihdharâs arrival in America than it was letting on to the FBI.
Another one of Canestraroâs interviewees, identified as CS-8, told him that "diplomatic pressure" was exerted on the FBI not to investigate the Saudi governmentâs connections to the 9/11 attacks. The person did not elaborate.
A recently declassified FBI memo from 2017 revealed the bureauâs belated discovery that Bayoumi was paid a monthly stipend as a âcoopteeâ of the Saudi General Intelligence Presidency. (A cooptee is a citizen of a country, but not an officer or employee of that countryâs intelligence service, who assists that service on a temporary or opportunity basis.) The memo notes that the allegations of Bayoumiâs involvement with Saudi intelligence were not confirmed at the time of the 9/11 Commissionâs report, which had concluded that Bayoumi was âan unlikely candidate for clandestine involvement with Islamic extremists.
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Amorphous Web
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Amorphous Web
Bayoumi was part of a Saudi intelligence network that defied conventions. The head of the Saudi General Intelligence Presidency before 9/11 was the veteran spymaster Prince Turki al Faisal. Bayoumi, however, was paid out of channels by, and reported to, Prince Bandar bin Sultan Al Saud, the longtime Saudi ambassador to the United States and close friend of the Bush family, according to a declassified FBI memo. Information that Bayoumi collected on persons of interest in the Saudi community in San Diego and Los Angeles was forwarded to Prince Bandar, not Prince Turki. Prince Bandar and his wife, Princess Haifa al Faisal, also sent money to a close associate of Bayoumi in San Diego and the associateâs wife, according to FBI reporting.
The CIA, which had a close relationship with Prince Bandar, saw the Saudi embassy intelligence network as business as usual. âThis is normal intelligence collection from [any] embassy in the West,â the CIA veteran who worked on the 9/11 investigation says. The United States and Saudi Arabia had reached an understanding through a covert alliance that went back decades. In the 1970s, Saudi Arabia joined forces with the United States and other countries to fight Communism, especially in Africa, where the Soviet Union was backing an array of rebel groups and organizations. The alliance came to be known as the âSafari Club.â Saudi Arabia bankrolled U.S. intelligence operations and set up covert banking services for the agency. Later on the Saudis funded the anti-communist Nicaraguan Contra rebels at the request of the Reagan White House and the CIA. The Saudis also showered money on the Afghan mujahideen as they battled the occupying Soviet Red Army in the 1980s. Thousands of Saudis traveled to Afghanistan to fight alongside the mujahideen, including Osama bin Laden, who went on to found Al Qaeda with money from his wealthy family.
The CIA veteran involved in the 9/11 investigation detailed another little-known example of Saudi cooperation after the attacks. Shortly after the September 11 calamity, the Saudis loaded a plane with reams of information on Al Qaeda and delivered it to the CIA.
âIt was the most impressive data dump Iâve ever seen in my life,â the former CIA case officer says. âIt was every piece of information they might have had about anybody who might have been an Al Qaeda guy.â That information would prove critical years later in identifying a courier and adding to the puzzle that led the agency to Osama bin Ladenâs hideout in Pakistan.
The Saudi-CIA cooperation was not always smooth. After 9/11, there was a curious dispute that involved Saudi princes Turki and Bandar, the CIA, and the first two hijackers to arrive in the United States. The usually-secretive Saudis officials publicly revealed several intelligence tips they provided to the United States. Prince Turki told The Associated Press that his agency had passed word to the CIA in late 1999 and early 2000 that Hazmi and Mihdhar were members of Al Qaeda.
âWhat we told them was these people were on our watch list from previous activities of Al Qaeda, in both the embassy bombings and attempts to smuggle arms into the Kingdom,â Turki said. In addition, Nawaf Obaid, a security consultant to the Saudi government, told author Lawrence Wright that the names of the future hijackers were given to the then-station chief in Riyadh. That wasnât the only tip the U.S. intelligence community had on the hijackers. In late 1999, the U.S. intelligence community intercepted communications revealing that âKhalidâ (Mihdhar) and âNawafâ (Hazmi) had been summoned to an Al Qaeda meeting in Malaysia. A CIA desk officer noted that âsomething more nefarious [was] afoot.â
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A heads-up from Saudi intelligence would go a long way to help explain why the CIA was so closely tracking Hazmi and Mihdhar as they made their way to the United States in 2000. The CIA, however, furiously denied Prince Turkiâs account, saying it did not receive any information from Saudi Arabia about the two future hijackersâ connections to Al Qaeda until after 9/11. Prince Bandar then issued a âclarificationâ to Prince Turkiâs account: There were âno documents sent by Saudi Arabia regarding Mihdhar and Hamzi prior to September 11.â In other words, there was no paper trail for Congress, the FBI, or the 9/11 Commission to find. Prince Turki later retracted his statement in an interview with author Lawrence Wright.
Perhaps Prince Turki got it wrong (or lied for his own reasons). Or perhaps his comments had touched on secrets that the Saudis were just as desperate to conceal as the CIA. In 2007, the FBI opened Operation Encore to examine the network that supported Hazmi and Mihdhar when they arrived in the United States barely able to speak English. The FBI closed Operation Encore in 2021 after finding insufficient evidence to charge any Saudi government official with conspiring to help the hijackers carry out the 9/11 attack.
Hidden Hands
One of Encoreâs more stunning findings, however, was that the first two hijackers to arrive in the United States were aided by a militant Islamic network created and funded by officials in the Saudi embassy under the leadership of Bush family friend Prince Bandar.
The Saudi government and its embassy in Washington played a key role in âthe funding and creation of a multitude of Islamic organizations, offices, imams, and other religious figures with in the USâmany of which were involved with militant ideology,â according to an FBI memo from 2021 highlighting Saudi government connections to 9/11. âSeveral of these were known to be tied directly to Prince Bandar and/or were involved with the collection of information on US-based Islamic entities.â
According to the FBI, the Saudi militant network in the U.S. served a dual function. It promoted Wahhabism, an ultraconservative branch of Islam based on a literal reading of the Koran. It also collected intelligence on the dissidents that the royal family viewed as a threat. It was this network that assisted the hijackers when they landed at Los Angeles International Airport on January 15, 2000. And if Mark Rossini, Richard Clarke, and CS-23 are correct, it was this network that was involved in the effort to recruit at least one of the hijackers at the behest of the CIAâs Alec Station operatives.
The Saudi Embassy did not respond to a request seeking comment. A 2021 statement from the Embassy said that any allegation of Saudi complicity with the 9/11 plot was categorically false.
The militant network in Southern California was run by a close associate of Prince Bandarâs whose name was kept secret until recently. A man named Musaed al-Jarrah ran the Islamic Affairs office within the Saudi Embassy in Washington. Jarrah was a âknownâ Saudi intelligence officer, according to the 2021 FBI memo. He was also a key figure in the investigation of Saudi government ties to the 9/11 plot. âJarrah was a controlling, guiding, and directing influence on all aspects of Sunni extremist activity in Southern California,â the 2021 memo states. âJarrah had numerous contacts with terrorism suspects throughout the U.S.â Jarrah left the United States in 2006 after coming under suspicion for his links to terrorism. He continued working for Prince Bandar in the Saudi National Security Ministry in Riyadh, according to the 2021 FBI memo.
From Jarrah, the FBI found a trail leading to the hijackers. Agents uncovered evidence that Jarrah had directed Bayoumi and an employee of the Saudi consulate in Los Angeles to help the hijackers, according to FBI documents. Bayoumi was in direct contact with Jarrah around the time of the hijackersâ arrival in the United States.
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A heads-up from Saudi intelligence would go a long way to help explain why the CIA was so closely tracking Hazmi and Mihdhar as they made their way to the United States in 2000. The CIA, however, furiously denied Prince Turkiâs account, saying it did not receive any information from Saudi Arabia about the two future hijackersâ connections to Al Qaeda until after 9/11. Prince Bandar then issued a âclarificationâ to Prince Turkiâs account: There were âno documents sent by Saudi Arabia regarding Mihdhar and Hamzi prior to September 11.â In other words, there was no paper trail for Congress, the FBI, or the 9/11 Commission to find. Prince Turki later retracted his statement in an interview with author Lawrence Wright.
Perhaps Prince Turki got it wrong (or lied for his own reasons). Or perhaps his comments had touched on secrets that the Saudis were just as desperate to conceal as the CIA. In 2007, the FBI opened Operation Encore to examine the network that supported Hazmi and Mihdhar when they arrived in the United States barely able to speak English. The FBI closed Operation Encore in 2021 after finding insufficient evidence to charge any Saudi government official with conspiring to help the hijackers carry out the 9/11 attack.
Hidden Hands
One of Encoreâs more stunning findings, however, was that the first two hijackers to arrive in the United States were aided by a militant Islamic network created and funded by officials in the Saudi embassy under the leadership of Bush family friend Prince Bandar.
The Saudi government and its embassy in Washington played a key role in âthe funding and creation of a multitude of Islamic organizations, offices, imams, and other religious figures with in the USâmany of which were involved with militant ideology,â according to an FBI memo from 2021 highlighting Saudi government connections to 9/11. âSeveral of these were known to be tied directly to Prince Bandar and/or were involved with the collection of information on US-based Islamic entities.â
According to the FBI, the Saudi militant network in the U.S. served a dual function. It promoted Wahhabism, an ultraconservative branch of Islam based on a literal reading of the Koran. It also collected intelligence on the dissidents that the royal family viewed as a threat. It was this network that assisted the hijackers when they landed at Los Angeles International Airport on January 15, 2000. And if Mark Rossini, Richard Clarke, and CS-23 are correct, it was this network that was involved in the effort to recruit at least one of the hijackers at the behest of the CIAâs Alec Station operatives.
The Saudi Embassy did not respond to a request seeking comment. A 2021 statement from the Embassy said that any allegation of Saudi complicity with the 9/11 plot was categorically false.
The militant network in Southern California was run by a close associate of Prince Bandarâs whose name was kept secret until recently. A man named Musaed al-Jarrah ran the Islamic Affairs office within the Saudi Embassy in Washington. Jarrah was a âknownâ Saudi intelligence officer, according to the 2021 FBI memo. He was also a key figure in the investigation of Saudi government ties to the 9/11 plot. âJarrah was a controlling, guiding, and directing influence on all aspects of Sunni extremist activity in Southern California,â the 2021 memo states. âJarrah had numerous contacts with terrorism suspects throughout the U.S.â Jarrah left the United States in 2006 after coming under suspicion for his links to terrorism. He continued working for Prince Bandar in the Saudi National Security Ministry in Riyadh, according to the 2021 FBI memo.
From Jarrah, the FBI found a trail leading to the hijackers. Agents uncovered evidence that Jarrah had directed Bayoumi and an employee of the Saudi consulate in Los Angeles to help the hijackers, according to FBI documents. Bayoumi was in direct contact with Jarrah around the time of the hijackersâ arrival in the United States.
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From Jarrah, the FBI found a trail leading to the hijackers. Agents uncovered evidence that Jarrah had directed Bayoumi and an employee of the Saudi consulate in Los Angeles to help the hijackers, according to FBI documents. Bayoumi was in direct contact with Jarrah around the time of the hijackersâ arrival in the United States.
The 9/11 Commission steered clear of these issues when it interviewed Prince Bandar in October 2003 at his home in McLean, Virginia. Bandar did not volunteer information about Bayoumi or the militant network in the U.S. that his staff had fosteredâand it appears he was not asked about either issue, according to notes of the conversation that were declassified in 2019.
But Bandar took a conciliatory approach. He explained that his government âchose not to seeâ the radical fundamentalists in its midst. The government âtreated them much like Americans treat the Amish,â Bandar told the 9/11 Commission. âWe allow them to flourish and have no reason to believe that their way of life would do anyone harm.â The Saudi prince quoted from Invisible Man, Ralph Ellisonâs classic novel on the Black experience: âI am invisible because you choose not to see me.â Left unexplored was the role that Wahhabism, the austere state religion that the Saudi government had spread around the globe, may have played in radicalizing Osama bin Laden and other militant fundamentalists.
Now, 20 years later, an anonymous FBI agent has come forward to say that thereâs evidence about 9/11 implicating Saudi Arabia and the CIA that remains invisible to the public. Former FBI agents say the CIA may still be hiding what it knows about the first two 9/11 hijackers to arrive in the United States, as well as the real reasons why nobody told the FBI they were coming to America. Canestraro tells SpyTalk that his filing shows the CIA is hiding information. âThere are files in the government's possession that neither the military commissions nor the general public have seen regarding Saudi Arabia's potential role in 9/11,â he said. âThese files should be at a minimum released to the military commissions.â
Until then, answers to the remaining 9/11 riddles will remain out of sight.###
Note: This story has been updated to add that Mark Rossini was forced to resign from the FBI in 2008 after pleading guilty to five felony counts for criminally accessing records in an FBI database. In 2022 he pleaded not guilty in an ongoing federal corruption case involving a former governor of Puerto Rico.
Seth Hettena is a contributing editor at Rolling Stone and writes about national security and politics from San Diego.
SpyTalk is a wholly reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, do consider becoming a subscriber.
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1,133 views Apr 10, 2023
Part 1 of a three-part series, where I read from the public declaration of the former investigator for the Office of Military Commissions Defense Organization. In 2016, Donald C. Canestraro began an investigation into the possible involvement of the Saudi Arabian government and the Central Intelligence Agency in the events leading up to the September 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks.
Donald C. Canestraro filing document:
https://youtu.be/P9Li3Wdq5gI
22p PDF
https://www.floridabulldog.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Canestraro-Declaration-dated-20-July-2021.pdf
Commonwealth War Graves Commission's Post
Chungkai Military Cemetery, Thailand, in 1949 and now.
The original photo was taken by Major R. C. Tickell.
http://www.danielgreenfield.org/2023/04/big-techs-disinformation-billionaire.html
''Big Tech's Disinformation Billionaire==
danielgreenfield.org/2023/04/big-techs-disinformation-billionaire.html
'' From Russia smears to fake news to a lawsuit accusing former President Trump of rape, the money behind some of the dirtiest Dem tactics comes from an obscure Big Tech billionaire. When E. Jean Carroll first accused Trump of rape, the media quickly backed away. It didnât help that she told media outlets that âmost people think of rape as being sexyâ and âitâs the responsibility of the woman, too. Itâs equal. Men canât control themselves.â But after a fitful attempt at using the story to sell books, Carroll vanished and then returned with a lawsuit.''
In a deposition last year, Carroll claimed that no one else was paying her legal fees. That was not true. The money was allegedly coming from the American Future Republic: an anti-Trump group funded by Reid Hoffman. A filing by Trumpâs attorneys alleges that âpreviously, Hoffman contributed more than $600,000 to the legal defense fund of Bean LLC6âotherwise known as Fusion GPS, the company responsible for the creation of the Steele Dossier.â
The Steele Dossier was the founding hoax document for Russiagate and Spygate.
Reid Hoffman bought his way into being a Democrat power broker by throwing around tech industry money. Before the last election, he was peddling a $250,000 Zoom âprivate, off-the-record conversation with President Obama, hosted by me.â But heâs also become notorious for having his name attached to dirty Democrat figures and dirtier operations.
How concerned is Hoffman about sexual assault? In 2015, he invited Jeffrey Epstein to a dinner that he was hosting. The notorious pedophile was even honored with a replica of a âDisobedience Awardâ: a social justice award funded by the Big Tech billionaire. (The award was shut down after it was given to BethAnn McLaughlin for her #MeToo activism despite threatening to stab another woman. McLaughlin was accused of pretending to be a bisexual Indian geologist and faking her death making her only the second most embarrassing recipient.)
Reid Hoffman has gone from dining with Epstein to covertly funding a rape lawsuit because of his obsession with Trump and his penchant for political dirty tricks. The LinkedIn co-founder had donated $2 million to pro-Biden PACs and has been the money behind a variety of false flag operations from an anti-Trump cartoon coordinated with the Lincoln Project, whose former press secretary went to work for one of Hoffmanâs campaigns to fight âdisinformationâ, to an effort to convince conservatives to turn on Justice Kavanaugh by using fake Republicans.
Like many of the billionaire tech industry âdisruptorsâ in politics, Reid Hoffman came out of the âPayPal Mafiaâ before co-founding LinkedIn. Aside from being a major tech investor, Hoffman used his billions to become a Democrat megadonor pumping millions into the Democrats. But as the tech guru son of a Black Panther lawyer, Hoffman was not satisfied with straight politics.
The best way to understand Hoffman is as a younger, more tech-savvy George Soros, who has used his Silicon Valley skills to finance operations that âdisruptâ American politics. Beginning with âInvesting In USâ, with a mission of bringing âentrepreneurs and investors to join the resistanceâ, he backed ACRONYM which created fake sites pretending to be local papers.
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MotiveAI, another setup backed by Hoffman, had its own fake news operation targeting Republicans: one of which, titled, âDrain The Swampâ, aimed to sabotage the Kavanaugh nomination by trying to convince Republicans that the Supreme Court nominee had âhelped Bill and Hillary Clinton cover up the murder of a White House aide.â
MotiveAI then took credit for â28 districts flipped and the highest Democratic margin since 1972â.
Such digital dirty tricks have become a signature of groups funded by Hoffman.
During the 2017 Alabama Senate special election, New Knowledge, a lefty tech project, came after Republican candidate Roy Moore to, in its own words, orchestrate âan elaborate âfalse flagâ operation that planted the idea that the Moore campaign was amplified on social media by a Russian botnetâ. The funding for the âAlabama Projectâ came from Reid Hoffman.
Hoffman apologized for the âdisinformationâ campaign. âI find the tactics that have been recently reported highly disturbing,â an official statement from the Big Tech billionaire claimed. âI am embarrassed by my failure to track AETâthe organization I did support
âmore diligently as it made its own decisions to perhaps fund projects that I would reject.â
This was quite unconvincing since Hoffman had a history of funding digital dirty tricks.
New Knowledge had gone into business flagging âdisinformationâ and produced a report on it for the Democrat Senate Intelligence Committee. It also worked with Fusion GPS which had produced the Steele Dossier.
Hoffman, like fellow âPayPal Mafiaâ member Pierre Omidyar had also taken to funding anti-Trump groups and candidates claiming to be Republicans, including Evan McMullin, Liz Cheney, and Republican Women for Progress. The common denominator of all of these false flag operations was the conviction that the best way to manipulate Republicans was through fake Republicans.
The Carroll lawsuit was also meant to appear natural and apolitical when it was not. Once again a Hoffman-funded group was the money behind the political facade. And most investigative journalists have learned to look for Hoffmanâs money behind false flags, disinformation campaigns, and dirty tricks. They havenât worked, but they have helped slowly make him infamous. And now, with the Trump rape lawsuit, people outside the tech industry finally know who the rotund leftist billionaire is.
Hoffman isnât stopping though. And when he canât be satisfied with manipulating voters, he has been accused of trying to buy elections in a more direct fashion.
Before the 2020 election, Vox reported that âHoffmanâs team has also told people they are exploring some initiatives that sources feel could prove to be legally dicey, Recode is told: They have looked into what a donor could legally do to help with the collection and delivery of mail-in ballots, expected to be at record highs this year. They have also considered whether Hoffmanâs team could directly pay activists who convince others to commit to voting in North Carolina
â rather than funding a go-between, like an outside group, as donors traditionally do.â
Disrupting systems, and breaking the rules, are celebrated in Silicon Valley, and as Big Techâs âMasters of the Universe keep breaking our society, they may discover that the damage from disrupting countries is not an abstraction measured in private equity fund returns.
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''Bidenâs Black Astronaut Reads Anti-White Poem to Prep for Mission''
frontpagemag.com/bidens-black-astronaut-reads-anti-white-poem-to-prep-for-mission
Daniel Greenfield April 19, 2023
Are they 'astronauts' or 'cosmonauts'?
Donât know if we should be calling these woke folks, âastronautsâ or âcosmonautsâ. But it was also expected that the people they picked for a hypothetical lunar mission would be leftists who hate America. Their experiments will likely consist of measuring equity on the moon and claiming that low-gravity environments have a disproportionate impact on people of color. And this garbage is starting early. Really early.
NASA astronaut Victor Glover, recently named the pilot of the Artemis II mission around the Moon, listens to Gil Scott-Heronâs poem âWhitey on the Moonâ twice a week on the way to work.
Maybe doing some actual mission prep would be more helpful?
But weâre dealing with wokes here. So signaling their virtue and, in typical fashion, preemptively dumping on whatever task theyâre going to screw up anyway is more important than the actual mission.
In the 1970 spoken-word poem, Scott-Heron criticizes investment in space when black people in the U.S. couldnât afford health care.
Gil Scott-Heron, a racist crackhead who came down with HIV, was not offering some meaningful critique of the space program, he was inanely blaming white people for his problems.
Was all that money I made lasâ year
(for Whitey on the moon?)
How come there ainât no money here?
(Hm! Whiteyâs on the moon)
Yâknow I jusâ âbout had my fill
(of Whitey on the moon)
Imagine the outrage if a white astronaut were prepping with a racist tone poem about black people.
Anti-American lefties came to embrace âWhitey On the Moonâ. First Man managed to censor the American flag while featuring Scott-Heronâs racist rant.
A memorable scene captures this dissonance by juxtaposing the Apollo 1 disaster, in which a fire killed three astronauts during preflight testing, with people protesting NASAâs program â all set to a rousing reading of musician and poet Gil Scott-Heronâs work âWhitey on the Moon.â
Victor Glover has demonstrated why he doesnât belong on this mission. He doesnât represent America or NASA. And should a future conservative administration that cares about the details take office, he should be removed and allowed to pursue his dreams of talking about how terrible America is.
Glover also believes that itâs important to listen to the spaceflight skeptics, those who donât see the utility in sending people to space or spending money on those efforts.
Good point. If he gets sent up, no money should be wasted on bringing him back.
Digg?
https://www.weforum.org/people/venguswamy-ramaswamy
https://twitter.com/F4tUS/status/1648624757296726016
Minneapolis becomes the first U.S. city to publicly broadcast the Islamic call to prayer and it will be done five times a day.
The Muslim call to prayer is entirely in Arabic, will sound from mosques as early as 3:30 a.m. and as late as 11 p.m.
''The Useful Veneer of the Aging Democrat''
townhall.com/columnists/victordavishanson/2023/04/20/the-useful-veneer-of-the-aging-democrat-n2622179
President Joe Biden is now 80 years old. He will be 82 when he campaigns for the 2024 presidency - and a clearly debilitated 86 should he be elected and fill out his second term. He has been in government for over a half-century.
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and a current representative from California is 83.
Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., the second-ranking Democratic House member behind Pelosi, was House majority leader until early this year. He is 83 and has been an elected official for nearly 60 years.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., is 72, with 48 years in elected government.
Democratic luminary and former chairman of the Senate Judiciary and Intelligence Committees, Senator Diane Feinstein, D-Calif., is 89, and ailing - after 53 years as an elected official.
James Clyburn, D-S.C., is the House minority whip and 82.
These are the official faces of the Democratic Party.
They came into power and maturity three decades ago during the Clinton years of 1993-1999.
Decades ago, they sometimes supported strong national defense, secure borders, gas and oil development, fully funding the police, and a few restrictions on partial-birth abortions.
Not now.
Their role has changed from that of liberals of the Clinton era to serving as the thin power-holding veneer that masks the new real Democratic Party.
The party has been changed beyond recognition by Senators Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., the so-called Squad, the Congressional Black Caucus, newly elected senators like the Georgia duo of Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock - and Antifa and Black Lives Matter.
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Yet Biden and company are still familiar American faces.
Their final role is to acculturate the electorate to the new Democratic Party.
Its radicals are breathing down their necks to get out of the way. Yet for a while longer they still need such an ossified veneer of respectability to ease the transition to what is now essentially a socialist-European green party.
This new Democratic Party believes in defunding the police.
It supports the George-Soros-funded state and city district attorneys.
These prosecutors seek either to release violent criminals without bail or reduce their felonies to misdemeanors.
Critical legal and race theories are their creeds. So they argue that crimes have little to do with individual free will.
Criminals are not deterred by tough enforcement of the laws. Instead, "crime" reflects arbitrary constructs of a racially oppressive hierarchy.
They believe the "woke" revolution of using race and gender in lieu of a meritocracy should dominate government and corporate boardrooms.
Racial separation in graduations, dorms, and university programs are needed reparations.
Big Tech is their ally. All the better when it partners with government, especially the FBI and CIA, to suppress "misinformation" and "disinformation."
They believe gender is socially constructed. Thus transitioning biological males can and should compete in women's sports.
They want a Green New Deal right now, one that calls for the abolition of natural gas and oil for electricity generation and transportation.
Abortion is seen as a God-given right - even as a baby passes through the birth canal.
Climate change is their religion, trumping any concern for the viability of the middle-class suffering from inflation, high interest rates, and recession.
They want semiautomatic rifles to be banned. Concealed handgun permits should be almost impossible to obtain.
The more voters skip Election Day through mail-in balloting and early voting, the better.
There is no longer "dark money," only useful "correct" money.
The more that Silicon Valley and Wall Street grandees quietly reroute hundreds of millions of dollars into hard-Left PACs and "nonpartisan" causes, the more the donors should expect lucrative crony-capitalist green deals and government concessions.
Much of the ideology of the new Democratic Party arose in academia, like critical race theory and modern monetary theory. The giveaway word is "theory" - a mask for any absurd doctrine that can be dressed up as a sophisticated new idea.
When Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., the new Democratic minority leader in the House or Elizabeth Warren in the Senate advocate these positions, the voters recoil. That pushback is understandable, since almost none of these notions poll above 50 percent.
The role of a calcified Biden, Pelosi, Feinstein, Hoyer, or Clyburn is to reassure voters through their notoriety and apparently staid exteriors that they are hardly the sort to embrace revolution, although that is exactly what they do.
"Ol' Joe" Biden's old guard and the new hard Left play a game of mutual advantage.
The new majority of radical Democrats allows the old fogies to bask in the limelight until they drop - exempt from counter-revolutionary criticism or inter-party primary challenges or demands to retire.
In return, the codgers reassure the nation that old faces like theirs cannot possibly be polyester revolutionary socialists - despite their role in airbrushing and photoshopping the radical catastrophe unfolding before our eyes.
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