AI Mode reply for The social, political, and historical significance of proper, in depth investigations of the 9/11 events and the correct identification of the ultimate culprits

On Friday — 25 years after the Sept. 11 attacks — the CIA released a trove of presidential daily briefings leading up to that day, providing a stark chronological timeline of flashing warning signs missed by multiple administrations.

The CIA said the collection is the agency’s single largest release of declassified President’s Daily Brief products related to 9/11, “providing unprecedented transparency on America’s most sensitive intelligence publication from the years before and the day after one of the darkest moments in our history.”

“The products trace the story of CIA analysts’ evolving understanding of al-Qa’ida and efforts to highlight and warn of Usama Bin Ladin’s attack plotting despite sparse, vague, and imperfect information,” the CIA said in its release.

While much of the information had been revealed in the last 25 years, including through the 9/11 Commission Report, most of the documents themselves have not been seen by the American public. The documents reveal the consistent drumbeat of intelligence presented to then-Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush about the threat posed by Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida.

Most striking is a PDB from Dec. 4, 1998, detailing a suspected hijacking plot. Previously reported on by The Washington Post in 2004, the memo — starkly titled “Bin Ladin Preparing To Hijack US Aircraft and Other Attacks” — wrote in plain language, “Bin Ladin and his allies are preparing for attacks in the US, including an aircraft hijacking.”

The memo indicates sources said that “two members of the operational team had evaded security checks during a recent trial run at an unidentified New York airport” and noted “some members of the Bin Ladin network have received hijack training,” raising questions as to why airport security was not increased in the subsequent years leading up to 9/11.

A U.S. official told MS NOW that CIA analysts at the time struggled to obtain information about al-Qaida and fully analyze it.

“It was a small team, a few dozen people,” the official said. “Counterterrorism was not a priority.”

The official said leading up to 9/11, Bin Laden was not a top focus in terms of intelligence collection.

“[Bin Laden] was not a priority collection target,” the official said, adding that information on the terrorist leader was “extremely sparse.”

But throughout the 71 documents starting on Feb. 13, 1998, CIA intelligence paints a clear picture of a Bin Laden determined to attack the United States — while being unable to pinpoint specifics.

The briefs repeatedly detail Bin Laden’s efforts to “procure unspecified chemical, biological, and nuclear substances” and his dependence on Taliban’s “goodwill” to provide safe harbor for him and his associates to conduct terrorist plots in Afghanistan.

As of June 1998, the U.S. had no information indicating Bin Laden had a terrorist cell in the U.S., with a September 1998 memo describing Bin Laden’s nongovernmental organization-funded network in the U.S. as “loosely connected.”

A July 3, 1998, memo detailing four reports from “highly questionable sources” suggests Bin Laden planned to conduct an attack in the U.S., including one in Washington “probably at a shopping mall.”

“We have little information on Bin Ladin’s operatives in the US,” it said.

Still, in September 1998 the U.S. maintained that the “most serious threat” of terrorism came from Bin Laden and affiliated groups despite his U.S. associates seeming “less structured than cells in other countries,” with Europe viewed more at risk.

“Intelligence provides no conclusive information on Bin Ladin’s intentions for future attacks,” a Sept. 10, 1998, memo says.

“Bin Ladin late last month said his preferred option is to strike the US on its own soil in Washington,” the memo warns. “The same group responsible for the bombings in Africa may fly an explosive-packed airplane into a US city.”

A Dec. 11, 1998, memo built on the PDB a week earlier warns of an aircraft hijacking (see above) — “over the past two months suggest Bin Ladin’s group is preparing one or more terrorist attacks in the near future” … “several reports of impending anti-US terrorist operations” … “planning to hijack aircraft before Ramadan.”

By May 25, 1999, the daily brief reports that Bin Laden “is pursuing a variety of options for developing chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear capabilities” and includes a stark warning: “Scientists are developing a “nuclear weapon” at a facility in Heart, and Bin Ladin believes it could be ready in one to two months.”

Through the fall and winter of 1999 — two years before the 9/11 attack — intelligence memos consistently reported Bin Laden’s determination to target and attack the U.S., with an Aug. 3, 1999, memo noting, “The ongoing activity of Bin Ladin operatives reflects the resilience of his organization in the face of setbacks … his personnel still are planning attacks in widely scattered locations such as Washington.”

“The extent of Bin Ladin’s reach and the variety of targets make anticipating attacks difficult,” the report says. A manifesto seized in March 2000 recommended attacking “population targets, such as skyscrapers, airports, or nuclear power plants.”

The documents reveal an intelligence community struggling to “pinpoint targets of timing” for a possible Bin Laden-ordered attack, but still, the memos do not indicate an urgency to track down the al-Qaida leader nor meaningfully increase pressure on the Taliban to surrender him.

In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, Clinton vigorously defended his administration’s counterterrorism record, saying his team broke up al-Qaida cells, prevented several terrorist incidents and tried numerous times to get Bin Laden. Clinton told the 9/11 commission that if the U.S. had actionable intelligence about where Bin Laden was, he would have mobilized special operations forces to take action.

“Usama Bin Ladin’s al-Qua’ida and sympathetic groups are determined to carry out spectacular terrorist attacks against the US before yearend,” a December 2000 briefing warns.

But the alarms persisted long after Clinton left office.

Several memos prepared for Bush throughout early 2001 caution against the threat of Bin Laden’s “extensive program to develop or acquire chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear weapons and materials,” as well as his desire to drive U.S. forces from the gulf and willingness to “try unconventional attacks to advance this goal.” One memo says Bin Laden designing or testing a nuclear device was the “least probable scenario,” with another noting, “Bin Ladin and his associates have experimented by crude means to make and deploy biological agents.”

Over the course of the spring and summer of 2001, threats became more specific — and prescient.

A May 22, 2001, memo says “planning is under way for three separate operations in [REDACTED] to take US diplomats or civilians hostage,” warning conspirators seeking release of U.S.-held prisoners “may hijack an aircraft or storm a US Embassy.”

“For the second time in two weeks [REDACTED] indicates that an expected imminent Bin Ladin-sponsored terrorist operation has been postponed, but preparations for other near-term attacks may still be in train,” a July 24, 2001 report says, adding, “Something they had expected to hear in the news is still planned but has been delayed a few months.”

A month before 9/11, the intelligence community warned of al-Qaida’s ability to attack within U.S. borders

“Al-Qa’ida members-including some who are US citizens—have resided in or traveled to the US for years, and the group apparently maintains a support structure that could aid attacks,” an Aug. 6, 2001, memo says, noting that while the U.S. had not been able to corroborate “some of the more sensational threat reporting, such as that from a service in 1998 saying that Bin Ladin wanted to hijack a US aircraft,” FBI information since then still “indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York.”

Bush told the 9/11 commission that that memo — the 36th item that year related to Bin Laden or al-Qaida and the first specifically devoted to the possibility of an attack within the U.S. — was “historical in nature,” but did not recall discussing it with the attorney general or whether his national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, had done so.

“[Bush] said that if his advisers had told him there was a cell in the United States, they would have moved to take care of it,” the 9/11 Commission Report says. “That never happened. “

Speaking at a memorial ceremony at the Pentagon 25 years later, Rice gave a “deeply personal” apology to the families of the nearly three thousand people who lost their lives.

“Those of us in authority on that day did not see the nature of the danger in time to prevent the attack of 9/11,” she said. “We did what we knew to do, but by definition, it was not enough.”

She called it a “miracle” that there was not a follow-up attack, expressing gratitude for the armed forces and intelligence community.

“Their service and their sacrifice in the war on terror kept us safe,” Rice said. “But I will always carry deep personal remorse for the pain that you, the families of the fallen, still feel, and for the trauma that our country endured.”

Nora McKee, Peggy Helman, Kevin Frey and David Rohde contributed to this report.

By Gordon Thomas

Anti-Semitic conspiracists plan to flood the internet to mark the tenth anniversary of 9/11 attacks by resurrecting the old canard that Mossad, Israel’s secret intelligence service, knew in advance of the attack – and did not warn the CIA and FBI.

The conspiracists say that the attack on the Twin Towers was a “false flag” operation organised by Mossad as part of an ongoing attempt by Israel to launch a war against its Muslim “enemies”.

The fact is that Mossad warned that an attack was impending.

From the day bin Laden’s suicide bombers partly destroyed the World Trade Center in 1993, Mossad had placed him at the top of its own list of most wanted terrorists. Its deep-cover field agents had picked up “whispers in the wind” that bin Laden was planning “something big,” said one report. Another spoke of a “strong rumour bin Laden is planning a Hiroshima type attack.” Still another revealed a flight simulator being used in an al-Qaeda training camp near Kabul. Then came the news that bin Laden had been trying to obtain chemical and nuclear weapons.

While Mossad analysts tried to connect the dots, the reports were also passed on through the long-established back channel to the CIA. The Pentagon was asked to evaluate the threat of an air strike. One of its analysts, Marvin Cetron, wrote, “Coming down the Potomac, you could make a left turn at the Washington Monument and take out the White House.” Another analyst, Martin Clefran, was told “look we can’t manage a crisis until it is a crisis”.

Before 9/11, there was a feeling in Washington that Mossad was once more crying wolf, that it had a vested interest in promoting Islamic fundamentalism as a threat because it feared its terrorists and wanted to persuade the United States that it also faced a similar threat. By the time Efraim Halevy, head of Mossad before 9/11, had come into office, dutifully read the files on terrorism threats, and seen the reaction to Mossad’s warnings, he had decided that, in the words of one of his senior officers, “there was no point in pushing against a bolted door.”

However, Haleavy confirmed to me that Mossad “had sent several warnings in the week prior to September that an attack was coming” and cited “credible chatter” Mossad agents had picked up in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen. In his diplomatic way, he implied that the growing turf war between the FBI and CIA in 2001 was one reason why the warnings were ignored Both agencies had concrete evidence that al-Qaeda was an increasing threat: one of its operatives had been stopped at the last moment from flying a hijacked plane into the Eiffel Tower in Paris, and intel had emerged at Langley, indicating bin Laden was planning an air strike against the economic summit it Italy earlier in 2001. But the sense of paralysis and denial, compounded by the growing turf war between the FBI and the CIA, had continued to hold the U.S. intelligence community in its grip

After 9/11 Haleavy recalled the “hot line from Langley was superheated”. A dozen calls a day from George Tenet, then the CIA chief.

In one call Haleavy had snapped: “Where was your electronic surveillance?” to Tenet, who was facing intense criticism himself and wanted to know how much Mossad had known about the impending attack.

As conspiricists continue to spin their lies, the reality is that Mossad tried to warn the United States. As some choose to attack past events, those in the intelligence world need to continue to improve contact and sharing of vital information.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Two former FBI officials were charged Friday with lying to Congress about their involvement in investigating Hunter Biden’s laptop in the run-up to the 2020 presidential election, the latest in a series of splashy and politically charged actions the Justice Department has undertaken ahead of next month’s midterm contests.

Nikki Floris and Bradley Benavides, former leaders of a since-disbanded task force set up to counter foreign election interference, appeared in federal court in Washington, where their lawyers pressed for a speedy hearing to contest allegations their clients lied to lawmakers by saying that they did not participate in FBI investigations of Biden.

The prosecution, a rare Department of Justice criminal case against a former employee, revisits a tangled and peculiar saga that roiled the final weeks of the 2020 race. It also comes amid a broader, backward-looking effort by FBI Director Kash Patel, who before taking over the nation’s premier law enforcement agency was a harsh critic of it, to scrutinize high-profile episodes from the bureau’s recent past that for years have animated President Donald Trump’s conservative base.

Floris’ attorneys called her “a patriot” and said she has “served our nation as a dedicated FBI intelligence officer for nearly 20 years.”

“Yet today, the DOJ has accused her falsely of a crime on the say-so of politicians, not on the facts,” her attorneys said in a statement. “It’s no coincidence the government is filing these nonsense charges now, years later, on the eve of an election.”

Attorneys for Benavides accused the government of bringing “baseless criminal charges against him in a transparently political complaint.”

“This is another sad day for the Department of Justice,” his lawyers said in an emailed statement. “But now we are in court, and the truth will come out: Brad Benavides is a true patriot who devoted his career to protecting this country and its people. These charges are a disgrace.”

A criminal complaint comes just before the midterms

The case was filed less than two weeks before the Nov. 3 elections via criminal complaint, which means prosecutors have not yet presented the allegations to a grand jury for an indictment. The Justice Department has repeatedly struggled in high-profile cases to convince grand juries in the nation’s capital to return indictments.

During the former FBI employees’ court appearance, both defense attorneys and the judge noted the unusual move to charge the case through a complaint, which is more often used by prosecutors when they have an urgent need to take people into custody because, for example, they present a danger or a risk of flight.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui remarked that it is “rare that we have charges this old coming in this nature,” and over the objections of prosecutors who pushed for more time, set a preliminary hearing for next Tuesday, citing what he said was the “sword of Damocles” hanging over the defendants’ heads.

The laptop discovery created turmoil in 2020 election

The revelation of the laptop’s existence in October 2020 injected a thorny storyline in the race between Trump, the Republican incumbent, and Biden’s father, Joe Biden, Trump’s Democratic challenger who went on to win the race.

The laptop was publicized by the New York Post, which said it had obtained from Trump ally Rudy Giuliani a hard drive of a computer dropped off by Hunter Biden at a Wilmington, Delaware, repair shop about a year earlier.

The criminal complaint aims to build on longstanding congressional Republican complaints about the FBI’s handling of the laptop, including allegations that the bureau was not forthcoming to the public that the materials on it — including emails that showed discussions of the younger Biden’s foreign business dealings — were authentic and not the product of Russian disinformation.

The curious circumstances of the laptop’s discovery raised concerns among Democrats and former intelligence officials about the possibility of Russian involvement, particularly at a time when the Trump administration’s own intelligence community had assessed that Moscow that Russia was attempting to interfere in Trump’s favor in the election and as Giuliani had traveled abroad looking for dirt on the Bidens. Dozens of former U.S. intelligence officials signed a letter saying that the laptop bore the “classic earmarks of an Russian information operation.”

But Trump’s then-director of national intelligence, John Ratcliffe, said in a letter to Congress that there was no proof foreign actors had anything to do with the laptop. The FBI under then-Director Chris Wray subsequently endorsed that position.

Hunter Biden was charged with, and convicted of, gun and tax offenses during his father’s administration. Joe Biden pardoned him in his final weeks in office.

The case shines a light on an FBI task force on foreign intelligence

The complaint alleges that in their capacity as leaders of the Foreign Influence Task Force, Floris and Benavides were deeply engaged in the investigations into Hunter Biden, and that Biden was a recurring subject at FITF meetings.

Yet, the complaint says, both downplayed their firsthand knowledge of the laptop or involvement in investigations during 2023 testimony to lawmakers who were doing their own Biden investigation.

It accuses Benavides of making a false statement by saying he learned through Wikipedia that the FBI was in possession of the laptop, and says Floris falsely claimed to have had no knowledge of Hunter Biden having been the subject of discussions at FITF.

“Lying to Congress by senior FBI officials strikes at the heart of our system. No one is above the law,” Patel said.

The case brings renewed attention to the work of the task force, which was established in the first Trump administration to police influence campaigns staged by Russia and other nations aimed at sowing discord, undermining democracy and spreading disinformation. The task force became a magnet of congressional Republican criticism in part because of the Hunter Biden investigation and was disbanded in February 2025 by then-Attorney General Pam Bondi.

The Justice Department has made other splashy moves

As FBI director, Patel has presided over widespread firings of agents who were involved in investigations of Trump or who are perceived as being against the Republican administration’s agenda.

He has also focused attention on years-old investigations like the Hunter Biden one that occurred before he became director and that have been the subject of grievances and complaints by Trump allies.

The Justice Department historically looks to avoid public and overt investigative acts in the direct lead-up to an election that involve candidates or that risk influencing a political outcome. But officials in the last two weeks have made a series of bold moves in cases with political undertones, including a search of Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar’s house in an immigration fraud investigation and a corruption indictment unsealed Thursday against powerful Democratic Virginia state Sen. L. Louise Lucas.

Omar and Lucas are both Trump critics. Omar, who’s from Minnesota, has called the search of her Washington home an “attempt to target political enemies and weaponize federal law enforcement.” Lucas has said she won’t be intimidated or bullied by the federal government in its case against her and “will not back down.”