With evidence growing of high-level Saudi Arabian involvement in the 9/11 attacks, Rep. Walter Jones of North Carolina told
Newsmax TV on Friday that momentum is building in Washington to declassify the 28 redacted pages of the 9/11 Commission Report believed to detail a Saudi role.
Republican Jones, who has read the material but is prohibited by law from divulging it, told "MidPoint" host Ed Berliner, "there is no national security interest at stake."
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"This is simply to educate the American people, and I would tell you that [the classified section] deals with relationships with foreign countries and how they might've played into this attack on 9/11," he said. "I can't go much further than that."
In short, said Jones: "It would be an embarrassment to the Bush administration, and that's why they wanted to classify the 28 pages. But if we're going to give the families who lost so much on 9/11 a little bit of peace, then we must declassify this information."
The imprisoned former al-Qaida member known as the "20th hijacker" in the 9/11 plot, Zacarias Moussaoui, told investigators that Saudi royals bankrolled the terrorist group and that a Saudi diplomat in Washington discussed with him shooting down Air Force One,
The New York Times reported on Wednesday.
Saudi officials are vehemently denying the allegations, but the article has spurred new interest in the classified 28 pages and whether they essentially confirm Moussaoui's story.
Influential Republican senators including Lindsey Graham and Richard Shelby want the information declassified and released. On Thursday, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich tweeted to his 1.5 million followers:
Jones and a Democrat colleague, Rep. Stephen Lynch of Massachusetts, are reintroducing their
House resolution calling for the Obama administration to order the 28 pages declassified, and looking for senators to sponsor a similar measure.
"The president twice has told the 9/11 families in the last six years that he will declassify this information," said Jones. "Lynch and I wrote the president in April of 2014 asking that he keep his promise to the people, and we're still waiting for an answer."
White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters on Thursday that intelligence officials are still reviewing the material.
Jones said there should be no more stalling, "and that's why we're going to continue to beat this drum."
"It's important that the American people, no matter how they might feel, have an opportunity to see the [declassified pages] and then make their own judgment," he said.
He did not disagree that the revelations could alter the U.S. relationship with Saudi Arabia, a military, diplomatic and economic partner, and a primary oil supplier, but also home to 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden and 15 of the 19 hijackers.
"I'll say this: Our foreign policy under Bush and Obama have been failed policies to begin with," said Jones. "I would say that hopefully this will help our government have a stronger foreign policy than we've had in the past."
Jones urged people to contact their elected representatives in Congress to get them to push for the release, and he directed viewers to a Web site, 28pages.org, for information.
"I'm from North Carolina, as you know: I didn't have any of my constituents involved in the 9/11 tragedy," said Jones.
But in his three congressional news conferences with 9/11 families, he said, "to hear their story and to hear their pain — if for no other reason, it ought to be declassified because of what they suffered. And it will help the American people understand the world we live in."