Shocker: FBI Lied, Hid Evidence, Covered Up State of Disorder

Notorious for failing in its duty to thwart terrorist attacks, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is under fire again, this time from a bipartisan group of U.S. Senators who want the beleaguered law enforcement agency investigated for “major abnormalities” involving evidence in a terrorism case. Known for its corrupt method of operating, the FBI appears to be hiding evidence critical to a pendingJustice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA) lawsuit brought by family members of 9/11 victims. Two years ago, the FBI received a civil subpoena in the case and the lawmakers believe the agency has committed numerous violations and may be trying to conceal that its “investigative files are in a state of disorder.”

In a letter to the FBI watchdog, the Department of Justice Inspector General (DOJ IG), the senators write about “troubling reports concerning the FBI’s irregular treatment of a civil subpoena issued by the September 11 families.” The lawmakers, New York Democrat Charles Schumer, Iowa Republican Charles Grassley and Connecticut Democrat Richard Blumenthal mention half a dozen concerns that merit a probe by the IG, including the FBI’s refusal to conduct methodological searches of its electronic databases, “instead empowering FBI officials with inherent conflicts of interest to hand-select the materials to be considered for possible production, and to control the information that is produced.” Judicial Watch has regularly encountered similar obstacles over the years in efforts to obtain public records from the FBI, most recently involving the shady anti-Trump “dossier” masterminded by corrupt FBI officials plotting against the president. Last month the FBI used coronavirus as an excuse to shut down its electronic public records operations.

In the 9/11 lawsuit families are seeking information about the FBI’s investigation of two Saudi Arabian government employees—Omar al Bayoumi and Fahad al Thumairy—who provided 9/11 hijackers Nawaf al Hazmiand and Khalid al Mihdhar and their accomplices “substantial assistance.” Thumairy was a Saudi consular official in Los Angeles and his ties to the hijackers are detailed in a once-classified portion of the 9/11 Commission Report that was declassified in 2016. In the spring of 2018 attorneys representing the 9/11 families served a civil subpoena on the FBI for the information critical to their case, but there may have been major abnormalities in the FBI’s handling of that subpoena that deserve the inspector general’s attention, the lawmakers write.

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