Sen. Rand Paul is introducing legislation that some backers say will help prevent another 9/11-type terrorist attack by exposing Saudi Arabia’s role in the 2001 plot.

The Kentucky Republican, fresh off forcing the temporary expiration of three post-9/11 surveillance authorities, on Tuesday publicly announced a bill that would require the declassification of 28 withheld pages from a congressional report on the attacks.

The pages have been classified for more than 12 years and are only accessible to members of Congress who request permission to read them in a special room.

Paul also plans to introduce the legislation, which is co-sponsored by Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., as an amendment next week to a defense spending bill.

Former Sen. Bob Graham, a Florida Democrat who led the Senate intelligence committee after the attacks, has long crusaded for the pages' disclosure and said at a press conference alongside Paul and House members they describe “who financed 9/11” and “point a strong finger at Saudi Arabia.”

Release of the pages, Graham said, would “cause the American government to reconsider the nature of our relationship with Saudi Arabia.” At a January event, he said the pages reveal an "evil union of extremism and a very powerful nation-state,” and that they remain relevant to counterterrorism.

“Al-Qaida was a creature of Saudi Arabia,” Graham said in January, “and now [the Islamic State group] is the latest creature.”

Rep. Thomas Massie, who is co-sponsoring a House companion bill, said the redacted information “establishes a chain of liability” for the attacks.

Massie, R-Ky., said many hawkish members of Congress who push for the broad collection of Americans’ records “in the name of preventing another 9/11” have not read the pages and merely pretend to be well-informed about terrorist threats.

“Some of the best intelligence we have is in these 28 pages,” Massie said, connecting the issue to the debate over extending Patriot Act provisions that permit government surveillance.

Reps. Stephen Lynch, D-Mass., and Walter Jones, R-N.C. – who unveiled the House version of the bill earlier this year after a previous edition died without a vote – also expressed concern Tuesday that many of their House colleagues had not gone through the hassle of reading the pages.

They said the pages contain no information that could harm national security.

“It is appalling and it is a disgrace” that the pages have been withheld, Lynch said. The information, he said, should be released to help “hold accountable those who aided and abetted” the 9/11 hijackers, 15 of 19 of whom were Saudi.

Paul acknowledged Tuesday that the Constitution’s Speech or Debate Clause allows him to read the pages on the floor of the Senate – assuming he could get his hands on them – without fear of prosecution. The clause grants protection to members of Congress if they decide to release classified information during official legislative proceedings, though very few exercise that power. Lynch and Jones previously expressed disinterest in the idea.

But in response to a follow-up question, the GOP presidential candidate – trailed by a dozen cameramen – said “we’re going to try the normal legislative process first” and that he plans to personally raise the issue with President Barack Obama. His bill does permit some redaction of the material in the pages.

Several family members of 9/11 victims attended the Tuesday press conference and appeared excited about what's now a bicameral, bipartisan legislative push.

Kaitlyn Strada, whose father was killed in New York City, said “9/11 children are growing up in a world where we can’t trust our own government” and asked Obama to “allow us and the world to know the truth.”