Nearly a quarter-century after the September 11 attacks, a renewed push for transparency is putting fresh pressure on Washington to finally open its files.
According to the Gateway Pundit, President Donald Trump announced on September 13, 2026, that he would consider a request from families of 9/11 victims to declassify and release additional records concerning possible Saudi connections to the attacks. This acknowledgment of the families plea underscores a growing public demand to confront unresolved questions about that day and to hold all responsible parties fully to account.
In response to this development, The Gateway Pundit consulted Raymond Orzel, a veteran financial investigator with extensive experience tracking international terrorist networks. Orzel previously served as the inaugural director and executive co-chair of the Terrorist Financing Targeting Center (TFTC) at the U.S. Department of the Treasury, giving him a front-row view of how terror groups move and conceal money.
He noted that since the September 11, 2001, attacks, federal agencies have periodically released a substantial volume of records to the public. Yet, as he emphasized, these materials are scattered across the National Archives, FBI, CIA, courts, and FOIA records, making it difficult for citizens, researchers, and even lawmakers to see the full picture.
This fragmentation severely complicates efforts to reconstruct a coherent narrative of what U.S. authorities knew, when they knew it, and how they responded. The dispersed documents span 9/11 Commission records, FAA and aviation files, FBI investigative materials, National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) flight investigation records, investigative files tied to Saudi entities, additional memoranda from 9/11 Commission interviews, presidential and White House records, court filings, and evidence from related lawsuits.
Despite this vast paper trail, Orzel stressed that some of the most critical records remain hidden from public view. Among the still-withheld materials, he cited intelligence files, FBI operational files tied to the PENTTBOM investigation, grand jury records, personally identifiable information (PII), and other sensitive sources and methods that he believes merit careful but serious review for possible release.
The stakes of declassification are not merely academic or historical. Releasing some of these records could impact ongoing litigation or national security, which in turn, could also affect strategic relationships, he cautioned, acknowledging the diplomatic and security sensitivities involved.
Even so, Orzel finds it illogical that a large portion of the 9/11 Commission collection remains classified or stuck in bureaucratic limbo after so many years. From a conservative standpoint, the instinct to shield government agencies from embarrassment cannot outweigh the publics right to know how its institutions performed in the face of the deadliest terrorist attack on American soil.
Orzel maintains that certain facts should already be part of the public record, including the reality that two of the hijackers were on watch lists before 9/11, yet that information alone did not stop them from boarding commercial flights. This failure raises serious questions about intelligence-sharing, bureaucratic inertia, and whether political sensitivities over foreign partners hampered decisive action.
The records related to law enforcement and intelligence agencies who worked to track and determine how al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations raised funds and moved money to support their operation should also be released, according to the financial investigator. Most would be surprised to learn of the role IRS-Criminal Investigation Special Agents played in following the money trail of the 9/11 hijackers and Al-Qaeda.
Equally troubling, he said, is how much remains unknown about what U.S. agencies were able to piece together in real time on the morning of the attacks. Shockingly, the U.S. Customs Service (USCS) Office of Intelligence was also able to identify the likely terrorist hijackers, demonstrating that key clues were in American hands far earlier than many realize.
Orzel stated that within just 45 minutes of the attacks, USCS forwarded the passenger lists, which included the names of the victims and the 19 likely hijackers, to the FBI and the intelligence community. He argues that these records, too, should be made public to shed light on how quickly the government identified the perpetrators and what was done with that information.
After 25-years, Orzel argued, a lot more can be learned about 9/11 but only if the records are made available for us all to draw our respective conclusions. Isnt that what transparency is all about? His appeal aligns with a broader conservative insistence that government power must be subject to scrutiny, especially when past failures cost thousands of American lives.
As President Trump weighs further declassification, the families of the victims and experts like Orzel are pressing for a full accounting that transcends partisan interests and diplomatic sensitivities. Only by exposing the remaining recordshowever uncomfortable for bureaucrats or foreign partnerscan the country fully understand the events that reshaped American history and better ensure that such a catastrophe is never repeated or quietly obscured by secrecy.
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