patrick.net

I can see it:

One after another, the families asked Trump to release documents from the F.B.I.’s investigation into the 9/11 plot, documents that the Justice Department has long fought to keep secret. After so many years they needed closure, they said. They needed to know the truth. Some of the relatives reminded Trump that Presidents Bush and Obama blocked them from seeing the files, as did some of the F.B.I. bureaucrats the president so reviled. The visitors didn’t mention that they hoped to use the documents in a current federal lawsuit that accuses the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia — an American ally that has only grown closer under Trump — of complicity in the attacks.

The president promised to help. “It’s done,” he said, reassuring several visitors. Later, the families were told that Trump ordered the attorney general, William P. Barr, to release the name of a Saudi diplomat who was linked to the 9/11 plot in an F.B.I. report years earlier. Justice Department lawyers handed over the Saudi official’s name in a protected court filing that could be read only by lawyers for the plaintiffs. But Barr dashed the families’ hopes. In a statement to the court on Sept. 12, he insisted that other documents that might be relevant to the case had to be protected as state secrets. Their disclosure, he wrote, risked “significant harm to the national security.”

Trump, like all other US presidents so far, is protecting Saudi murderers from justice.

Worse, we actually protect the criminal Saudi state from their well deserved thrashing by Iran, even as their soldiers willfully shoot down our own soldiers on our own soil.

The stink of corruption pervades every discussion of Saudi Arabia by our government.

NYT reporter who wrote book critical of Saudi Prince was then targeted


https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/jan/28/saudi-arabia-new-york-times-reporter-hacking-allegations-mbs

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georgeliberte says

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This is a topic I know little about, but isn't it likely that our relationship with the Saudis is just incredibly valuable, such that were willing to tolerate certain extremely negative aspects of the relationship?

Maybe our ability to favorably influence the oil?
Maybe by our ability to favorably influence their their ultra-jihadi citizens through the kingdom?
Maybe global terrorism would be much worse if the kingdom didn't do us certain discreet favors?
Maybe it gives our military a very strategic location?
Maybe the country or region is at risk of changing, perhaps via alliance with a Russia or other strategically bad actor, if we were to reject them?

I may not like people who're above the law, but I do recognize that some people are, and that it can be the lesser of evils.

I've always imagined that when a president gets sworn in, that they quickly get some kind of briefing that summarizes how the world really works. Not the BS that is told to the public. It's kinda like how every single us president for decades has gravely remarked on the importance of american energy independence - I feel like they were briefed and made aware of how important oil really is, and what crazy things the country actually does to maintain it. I'm guessing that briefing is where most presidents realize they need to kiss Saudi ass.

We don't need to kiss Saudi ass for any reason, ever.

We have enough oil of our own.

But Barr dashed the families’ hopes. In a statement to the court on Sept. 12, he insisted that other documents that might be relevant to the case had to be protected as state secrets. Their disclosure, he wrote, risked “significant harm to the national security.”

Now what could be "significant harm to national security?" Finding out major Saudis are covert US agents? Israeli involvement?

HeadSet says

ow what could be "significant harm to national security?"

Saudis will not pay off our politicians any more...that is the threat

Patrick says

We have enough oil of our own.

Ya, seems like we do now. But that wasn't true until the past ~5 years when the fracking innovation emerged.

Our Saudi alliance likely started over oil, but I suspect there's more to it now. I think we've intertwined tentacles over the years to help ensure our continued ties, back when we desperately needed their oil.