9/11 continues to send ugly and potentially deadly reminders my way. Months before the 25th anniversary of the terrorist attacks, I learned that I had lung cancer for a second time.  Two weeks later, a lab test showed I had a melanoma on my nose. Both cancers are attributed to exposure to the long tail of the plume of toxins in the air from the collapse of the twin towers. Many like me, all these years later, continue to discover that 9/11 will not leave them.

That makes it particularly infuriating that we still can’t get the truth about the Saudi Arabian government’s role in the terrorist attacks. On 9/11 two planes hijacked from Boston flew into the World Trade Towers, a third hijacked from Newark apparently heading for the Capitol crashed in a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania thanks to passengers on board. And a fourth, hijacked from Dulles Airport, slammed into the Pentagon.  Fifteen of the 19 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia. There is evidence that indicates Saudi money helped at least two of them.

Classified documents could reveal the truth about the depth of the kingdom’s involvement. But no administration since 9/11 has been willing to  completely release classified information. Twenty-five years is long enough to keep a secret. It is time for truth telling.

9/11 Families United, a group whose loved ones were killed in the terrorists attacks, has been at the forefront of the demand for the truth. It sued the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia asking for restitution. For the rest of us — first responders, reporters like me, downtown residents and office workers not involved in this decades-long lawsuit — finding out the truth seems urgent and essential. 

The families allege that  “. . . Saudi Arabia intentionally aided, abetted and counseled the commission of a criminal act or acts of international terrorism by al Qaeda, including its hijackers and other operatives, by providing the terrorist organization with material support, resources and funding.” Saudi Arabia denies any involvement and is fighting the lawsuit.

9/11 Families United and many others have called on President Trump and the federal government to release classified documents that could shed light on the Saudi government’s role.  In August 2025, Federal Judge George B. Daniels, in the Southern District of New York, agreed that there was evidence that two employees of Saudi Arabia living in the U.S. helped  two of the hijackers get settled in California as they prepared for the attacks.  Fahad al-Thumairy was a Saudi diplomat and radical cleric in Los Angeles and Omar al-Bayoumi a suspected Saudi agent who lived in San Diego in the 1990s. 

 In his ruling Judge Daniels wrote, “Bayoumi had frequent interactions with the hijackers from January to May 2000 that involved important logistical events for the hijackers’ settlement into the U.S. Besides the material assistance Bayoumi himself provided, he also seemed to serve as a connecting point between the hijackers and many other people who had provided assistance to the hijackers at one point or another.”

In 2001 before the attack, Bayoumi and his family moved to Birmingham, England, When officers with Scotland Yard’s Terrorist Squad searched his home ten days after 9/11, they came away with boxes of material that they turned over to the FBI.  Scotland Yard investigators now say that once it was assessed, none of the key evidence was shared with them.

But during the past few years, thanks to the 9/11 Families United lawsuit, we’ve learned that videos were discovered. One, entered as evidence and released to 60 Minutes, shows  Bayoumi taking a video tour of Washington, D.C., and standing in front of the Capitol talking about security.

Bayoumi, now in Saudi Arabia, has consistently denied any involvement in the 9/11 planning or attacks. But the BBC is reporting a connection between Bayoumi and  future al-Qaeda leader Anwar al Awlaki, who was killed by the U.S. in a drone strike in Yemen in 2011.

In addition, a notebook contained a sketch of an airplane, a mathematical calculation and an indication of angle of descent.

The sketch was submitted as evidence by 9/11 Families United and in his ruling that the lawsuit could go forward Judge Daniels wrote, “Most tellingly, the drawing of an airplane with equations related to the height and distance of a plane’s flight path, for which he [Bayoumi] could not come up with any reasonable explanation, facially connects Bayoumi with knowledge of the 9/11 attacks.” 

He went further in his conclusion, writing that “the total evidence creates a high probability as to Baroumi’s and Thumairy’s roles in the hijackers’ plans, and the related role of their employer, KSA [the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia].”

So here we are again 25 years later mourning the dead, reviewing the intelligence failures that allowed 9/11 to happen, and wondering about the next medical diagnosis that tells us 9/11 isn’t over.

It is time to learn the truth.