Several Ex-Presidents BUSTED After Trump FINALLY Declassifies Bombshell Doc

A massive new release of once-classified intelligence is reopening one of the most consequential questions surrounding September 11: How much did the U.S. government know about Osama bin Laden’s plans to strike America before the attacks occurred?

The CIA has released 71 President’s Daily Brief products from the years surrounding 9/11, exposing a trail of warnings delivered during the administrations of both President Bill Clinton and President George W. Bush.

The documents don’t show that either president was handed the blueprint for what ultimately happened on Sept. 11, 2001.

But they do reveal something striking: Years before hijacked passenger jets slammed into the World Trade Center and Pentagon, intelligence officials were already warning about bin Laden, attacks inside the United States, aircraft hijackings and Al Qaeda operatives potentially operating on American soil.

And some of those warnings were remarkably specific.

One of the most alarming came on Dec. 4, 1998.

The briefing prepared for Clinton carried the title:

“Bin Ladin [sic] Preparing To Hijack US Aircraft.”

The intelligence assessment warned:

“Some members of the Bin Ladin network have received hijack training, according to various sources. Bin Ladin could be weighing other types of operations against US aircraft.”

That wasn’t all.

The same document raised the possibility that an operation could be approaching quickly, stating:

“Bin Ladin might implement plans to hijack a US aircraft before the beginning of Ramadan on 20 December and that two members of the operational team had evaded security checks during a recent trial run at an unidentified New York airport.”

The significance of those words is difficult to miss with the benefit of hindsight.

But another warning had reached the Clinton administration months earlier.

A Sept. 10, 1998, briefing described intelligence indicating bin Laden wanted to bring the fight directly onto American soil.

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

The intelligence picture wasn’t uniformly definitive.

Some reports were explicitly regarded as questionable by the CIA.

One July briefing acknowledged that uncertainty directly:

“we have received four reports from highly questionable sources suggesting Usama [sic] Bin Ladin is making plans to conduct an attack in the United States.”

That distinction matters. Intelligence agencies routinely receive fragmentary, contradictory or unreliable information, and the newly released records do not amount to evidence that officials possessed advance knowledge of the specific 9/11 operation.

But the warnings continued.

By February 2000, intelligence reporting was identifying possible symbolic targets inside the United States, including the Statue of Liberty.

Then the presidency changed hands.

The warnings did not disappear.

After George W. Bush took office, intelligence officials continued tracking the threat from bin Laden and Al Qaeda.

Among the documents is perhaps the most famous pre-9/11 presidential intelligence briefing of them all:

“Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US.”

That August 2001 briefing would become a central focus of investigations after the attacks.

It warned that Al Qaeda had an existing presence inside the country:

“Al-Qa’ida [sic] 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.”

The briefing also described troubling activity occurring inside the United States.

“After US missile strikes on his base in Afghanistan in 1998, Bin Ladin told followers he wanted to retaliate in Washington,” the document states, noting the FBI found “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.”

Again, none of that amounted to the operational blueprint for what would happen on Sept. 11.

The intelligence did not identify the World Trade Center and Pentagon as the eventual targets, nor did it lay out the complete plan involving four hijacked passenger jets.

And the reliability of some individual reports remained in doubt.

A July 21, 1999, CIA memo, for example, reported a claim that bin Laden’s organization had “made a dry run of a bombing of the FBI headquarters” in Washington and suggested an attack could occur “soon.”

But CIA analysts simultaneously warned they had “reservations about the source.”

The threat picture extended far beyond airplanes.

Intelligence officials were also investigating whether bin Laden was pursuing chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear capabilities.

A February 1999 document delivered another chilling assessment:

“If Bin Ladin succeeded in buying a chemical or biological weapon, his past behavior and statements indicate he would have no reservations about using it and he would begin searching for a suitable target.”

Taken together, the newly public material provides a revealing look inside the stream of intelligence reaching America’s highest levels of government before 9/11.

CIA Director John Ratcliffe announced the release as the country marked 25 years since the attacks.

“Today I authorized the release of 71 Presidential Daily Briefs to honor the lives of those killed on 9/11,” Ratcliffe said in a statement.

The records span years and show analysts repeatedly trying to understand bin Laden’s intentions from intelligence that was often incomplete, uncertain and rapidly changing.

But they also put renewed attention on a painful historical reality: warning signs existed.

Possible attacks inside America.

Hijackings.

Operatives already in the United States.

Suspicious activity potentially connected to preparations for attacks.

And even intelligence contemplating aircraft being used in attacks against American cities.

Twenty-five years after 9/11, former Bush national security adviser Condoleezza Rice publicly addressed the failure to recognize the full magnitude of the threat before it was too late.

“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,” Rice said.

She added:

“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.”

The newly declassified material does not establish that Clinton, Bush or their administrations knew that terrorists would hijack four airplanes on Sept. 11, 2001, or knew the specific targets, timing and mechanics of the coming attack.

What the documents do establish is that the threat from bin Laden had been occupying the attention of American intelligence officials for years.

And scattered throughout that intelligence were warnings involving some of the very elements that would ultimately define the deadliest terrorist attack ever carried out on American soil.

Twenty-five years later, those warnings are now available for the public to examine.

And they provide a stark historical record of just how difficult—and ultimately consequential—it was for the government to turn a growing collection of warning signs into an understanding of the catastrophe that was approaching.