Sensational details have emerged in the long-standing lawsuit filed by survivors of the 9/11 terror attack and families of victims seeking to link the Saudi government with the plot that killed nearly 3,000 people.
In a series of allegations that is likely to pile more pressure on the US Justice Department to release redacted sections of the Congressional Inquiry into the attacks that is said to contain evidence of Saudi Arabia’s substantial involvement in the execution of the terror plot, special Counsel Robert Mueller has been accused of helping the Saudis cover up their role in the 9/11 attack.
Mueller, who was appointed FBI director by former President George W Bush two months prior to the attack, is accused of obstructing and putting road-blocks in front of his own officers investigating the Saudi connection during the critical few months following the attack.
READ: Saudi Arabia seeks to end US lawsuits over 9/11 attacks
“He [Mueller] was the master when it came to covering up the kingdom’s role in 9/11,” survivor Sharon Premoli, who was pulled from the rubble of the World Trade Centre 18 years ago, is reported saying in the New York Post. Mueller is described as being uninterested in investigating espionage conspiracy, involving foreign intelligence officers. Instead the record is said to show he covered up evidence pointing back to the Saudi Embassy and Riyadh — and may have even misled Congress about what he knew.
Such claims are likely to be met with surprise given that Mueller was appointed in 2017 to uncover a Russian plot to interfere with US elections, which is a far less serious case of espionage and conspiracy in comparison to the alleged Saudi plot against the US.
Premoli went on to claim that “in October of 2001, Mueller shut down the government’s investigation after only three weeks, and then took part in the Bush [administration’s] campaign to block, obfuscate and generally stop anything about Saudi Arabia from being released.”
Former FBI investigators have been cited making similar allegations. Mueller is said to have thrown up roadblocks in the path of his own investigators working the 9/11 case, while making it easier for Saudi suspects to escape questioning.
READ: Counsel investigates reports that UAE attempted to influence US policy
The Post reporter found that “time and again, agents were called off from pursuing leads back to the kingdom’s embassy in Washington, as well as its consulate in Los Angeles, where former FBI Agent Stephen Moore headed a 9/11 task force looking into local contacts made by two of the 15 Saudi hijackers.”
Moore, who testified in an affidavit for the 9/11 lawsuit, is reported saying that “diplomatic and intelligence personnel of Saudi Arabia knowingly provided material support to the two hijackers and facilitated the 9/11 plot.” Yet, it is alleged, he and his team were not allowed to interview them.
FBI agents claimed that Mueller had agreed to carry out an “outrageous request” for then-Saudi Ambassador Prince Bandar. It’s claimed that within days of the terror attack the FBI head helped to evacuate from the country dozens of Saudi officials, including at least one Osama Bin Laden relative who was on the terror watch list. According to FBI documents obtained by Judicial Watch – an activist group that investigates claims of government misconduct – Mueller assured their safe passage to planes, using agents as personal escorts.
Several other examples were cited as evidence of Mueller’s assistance to the Saudis in covering up the plot including his obstruction of agents from arresting a Saudi-sponsored Al-Qaeda cleric and his attempt to shut down a congressional investigation into the Saudi hijackers and their contacts within the US.
A former US counterintelligence official summed up Mueller’s role saying: “Bottom line is, Mueller did not do an investigation on people involved in the 9/11 attacks who were connected to the Saudi government.”
“Maybe if they were Russians, he would be interested. But he was not interested in investigating [Saudi] terrorists who murdered Americans.”