Here’s an update of for­mer Sen­a­tor Bob Gra­ham’s con­tin­u­ing efforts to get the noto­ri­ous­ly redact­ed 28 pages pub­licly released. And the FBI’s con­tin­u­ing efforts to block it:

The New York Times
Flori­da Ex-Sen­a­tor Pur­sues Claims of Sau­di Ties to Sept. 11 Attacks

By CARL HULSE
APRIL 13, 2015

MIAMI LAKES, Fla. — The episode could have been a chap­ter from the thriller writ­ten by for­mer Sen­a­tor Bob Gra­ham of Flori­da about a shad­owy Sau­di role in the Sept. 11 attacks.

A top F.B.I. offi­cial unex­pect­ed­ly arranges a meet­ing at Dulles Inter­na­tion­al Air­port out­side Wash­ing­ton with Mr. Gra­ham, the for­mer chair­man of the Sen­ate Intel­li­gence Com­mit­tee, after he has pressed for infor­ma­tion on a bureau ter­ror­ism inquiry. Mr. Gra­ham, a Demo­c­rat, is then hus­tled off to a clan­des­tine loca­tion, where he hopes for a break­through in his long pur­suit of ties between lead­ing Saud­is and the Sept. 11 hijack­ers.

This real-life encounter hap­pened in 2011, Mr. Gra­ham said, and it took a star­tling twist.

“He basi­cal­ly said, ‘Get a life,’ ” Mr. Gra­ham said of the F.B.I. offi­cial, who sug­gest­ed that the for­mer sen­a­tor was chas­ing a dead-end inves­ti­ga­tion.

Mr. Gra­ham, 78, a two-term gov­er­nor of Flori­da and three-term sen­a­tor who left Capi­tol Hill in 2005, says he will not relent in his efforts to force the gov­ern­ment to make pub­lic a secret sec­tion of a con­gres­sion­al review he helped write — one that, by many accounts, impli­cates Sau­di cit­i­zens in help­ing the hijack­ers.

“No. 1, I think the Amer­i­can peo­ple deserve to know the truth of what has hap­pened in their name,” said Mr. Gra­ham, who was a co-chair­man of the 2002 joint con­gres­sion­al inquiry into the ter­ror­ist attacks. “No. 2 is jus­tice for these fam­i­ly mem­bers who have suf­fered such loss and thus far have been frus­trat­ed large­ly by the U.S. gov­ern­ment in their efforts to get some com­pen­sa­tion.”

He also says nation­al secu­ri­ty impli­ca­tions are at stake, sug­gest­ing that since Sau­di offi­cials were not held account­able for Sept. 11 they have not been restrained in back­ing a spread of Islam­ic extrem­ism that threat­ens Unit­ed States inter­ests. Sau­di lead­ers have long denied any con­nec­tion to Sept. 11.

Mr. Graham’s focus on a pos­si­ble Sau­di con­nec­tion has received renewed atten­tion because of claims made by vic­tims’ fam­i­lies in a fed­er­al court in New York that Sau­di Ara­bia was respon­si­ble for aid­ing the Sept. 11 hijack­ers and because of a Free­dom of Infor­ma­tion Act law­suit filed against the F.B.I. in Flori­da.

In sworn state­ments in the two cas­es, Mr. Gra­ham has said there was evi­dence of sup­port from the Sau­di gov­ern­ment for the ter­ror­ists. He also says the F.B.I. with­held from his inquiry, as well as a sub­se­quent one, the fact that the bureau had inves­ti­gat­ed a Sau­di fam­i­ly in Sara­so­ta, Fla., and had found mul­ti­ple con­tacts between it and the hijack­ers train­ing near­by until the fam­i­ly fled just before the attacks.

Despite the F.B.I.’s insis­tence to the con­trary, Mr. Gra­ham said there was no evi­dence that the bureau had ever dis­closed that line of inves­ti­ga­tion to his pan­el or the nation­al com­mis­sion that reviewed the attacks and deliv­ered a report in 2004.

“One thing that irri­tates me is that the F.B.I. has gone beyond just cov­er­ing up, try­ing to avoid dis­clo­sure, into what I call aggres­sive decep­tion,” Mr. Gra­ham said dur­ing an inter­view in a fam­i­ly office in this Mia­mi sub­urb, which rose on what was a dairy farm oper­at­ed by Mr. Graham’s father, also a polit­i­cal leader in Flori­da.

The F.B.I. dis­miss­es such crit­i­cism. In a new review of the bureau in the after­math of Sept. 11, a three-per­son com­mis­sion issued a blan­ket dec­la­ra­tion that the fam­i­ly in Sara­so­ta had noth­ing to do with the hijack­ers or their attacks. The review placed blame for an ini­tial F.B.I. report of “many con­nec­tions” between the fam­i­ly and ter­ror­ists on a spe­cial agent who, under bureau ques­tion­ing, “was unable to pro­vide any basis for the con­tents of the doc­u­ment or explain why he wrote it as he did.”

Still, a fed­er­al judge in South Flori­da is review­ing an esti­mat­ed 80,000 doc­u­ments relat­ed to the F.B.I.’s inquiry in Flori­da to deter­mine what to release. Mr. Gra­ham sug­gest­ed that those doc­u­ments could include pho­tographs and records of cars linked to the hijack­ers enter­ing the gat­ed com­mu­ni­ty where the Sara­so­ta fam­i­ly lived.

“That will be a real smok­ing gun,” Mr. Gra­ham said.

The case received unex­pect­ed atten­tion this year when a for­mer oper­a­tive for Al Qae­da described promi­nent mem­bers of Sau­di Arabia’s roy­al fam­i­ly as major donors to the ter­ror­ist net­work in the late 1990s. The let­ter from the Qae­da mem­ber, Zacarias Mous­saoui, prompt­ed a state­ment from the Sau­di Embassy say­ing the nation­al Sept. 11 com­mis­sion reject­ed alle­ga­tions that Sau­di offi­cials had fund­ed Al Qae­da.

Mr. Graham’s stature has added weight both to the push for dis­clo­sure of the clas­si­fied 28 pages of the con­gres­sion­al inquiry as well as the legal fight to make pub­lic F.B.I. doc­u­ments about the inves­ti­ga­tion of the Sau­di fam­i­ly in Sara­so­ta.

“He has been behind us all the way in terms of bring­ing atten­tion to this,” said Dan Chris­tensen, edi­tor and founder of the Flori­da Bull­dog, the online inves­tiga­tive jour­nal that filed the Free­dom of Infor­ma­tion Act law­suit against the F.B.I and the Jus­tice Depart­ment.

Mr. Graham’s refusal to drop what many in the intel­li­gence com­mu­ni­ty con­sid­er to be long-set­tled issues has stirred some pri­vate crit­i­cism that the for­mer sen­a­tor has been out of the game too long and is chas­ing imag­ined con­spir­a­cies in an effort to stay rel­e­vant as he lec­tures and writes books. Intel­li­gence offi­cials say the claims in the secret 28 pages were explored and found to be unsub­stan­ti­at­ed in a lat­er review by the nation­al com­mis­sion.

For­mer col­leagues are not so ready to write off a law­mak­er they remem­ber for sound­ing the alarm against the inva­sion of Iraq. He warned that shift­ing atten­tion to remov­ing Sad­dam Hus­sein would debil­i­tate efforts to rid Afghanistan of Al Qae­da, which Mr. Gra­ham said posed a far greater threat to the Unit­ed States.

“Bob Gra­ham has proven to be pre­scient about many things,” said Jane Har­man, the for­mer Cal­i­for­nia con­gress­woman who once served as the top Demo­c­rat on the House Intel­li­gence Com­mit­tee.

...

So is this going to be FBI’s new response to sus­pi­cions of Sau­di elite involve­ment?!

...
“One thing that irri­tates me is that the F.B.I. has gone beyond just cov­er­ing up, try­ing to avoid dis­clo­sure, into what I call aggres­sive decep­tion,” Mr. Gra­ham said dur­ing an inter­view in a fam­i­ly office in this Mia­mi sub­urb, which rose on what was a dairy farm oper­at­ed by Mr. Graham’s father, also a polit­i­cal leader in Flori­da.

The F.B.I. dis­miss­es such crit­i­cism. In a new review of the bureau in the after­math of Sept. 11, a three-per­son com­mis­sion issued a blan­ket dec­la­ra­tion that the fam­i­ly in Sara­so­ta had noth­ing to do with the hijack­ers or their attacks. The review placed blame for an ini­tial F.B.I. report of “many con­nec­tions” between the fam­i­ly and ter­ror­ists on a spe­cial agent who, under bureau ques­tion­ing, “was unable to pro­vide any basis for the con­tents of the doc­u­ment or explain why he wrote it as he did.”
...

Let’s hope Daniel Hop­sick­er is sit­ting down when he reads about this (he’s had health issues). Deep breaths, Daniel!