With Meghna Chakrabarti

Former Sen. Bob Graham can’t forget what he learned about Saudi Arabia when he co-chaired the 9/11 Commission. And with the killing of the Saudi journalist, he says it’s high time to stop coddling the kingdom.

Guest

Sen. Bob Graham, Democratic U.S. senator from Florida from 1987 to 2005. Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence from 2001 to 2003. Co-chair of the joint congressional investigation into the 9/11 attacks. Governor of Florida from 1979 to 1987.

Interview Highlights

On patterns in Saudi behavior and how the U.S. has handled it

Bob Graham: "In the hours after 9/11, President Bush stated that the United States would go to the ends of the world to find who had committed this heinous act and bring them to justice. He also said that it appeared as if from the scale of the operation and its sophistication that a nation state was involved, and that that nation-state Iraq. We then proceeded to go to war with Iraq with very dire circumstances. I think that was the beginning scene of the cover-up of Saudi Arabia's involvement in 9/11, that it, not Iraq, provided 15 of the 19 hijackers. It was it, which had placed people in the United States months — or in some cases years — ahead of 9/11, who played a critical role in organizing and facilitating 9/11. They seem to have had some of the same shifting responsibility in this latest case."

On access, or lack thereof, to information in the 9/11 investigation

BG: "The facts are the facts. What I've been urging is that the United Sates government, particularly the FBI and the CIA, make public the information which they have, and then let the people evaluate what's known, and come to a judgement as to responsibility. You may remember it was almost exactly a year ago that the so-called 28 pages, which were 28 pages of the 9/11 Report itself, which had been withheld for more than a year, and it was finally leaked out — although with significant redaction that covered up much of the most salient information. So I think, my mantra is let the people know the truth, and let the people make their judgement as to responsibility for 9/11."

On the FBI's role in investigating 9/11

BG: "I would say the FBI was being quite uncooperative. In fact, at one point, shortly after the situation in Sarasota was discovered, my wife and I were in the Washington area to have Thanksgiving with our third daughter, and we were intercepted at [Dulles Airport] and taken to the FBI office which is located there, and essentially told by the No. 2 person, the deputy director of the FBI, that we were wasting our time, and that I should shut up and go home.

Meghna Chakrabarti: "You were the co-chair of 9/11 Commission, and the No. 2 person at the FBI was telling you that you were wasting you time trying to follow a lead about what the FBI investigated regarding possible connections between a Saudi family and the hijackers? I mean, it almost defies belief, Senator."

BG: "Well, and it gets worse. So I told the deputy director the information that I wanted, and he said, 'Well, come to our office, and we will talk about this.' So I did, and when I got there the deputy director told me that the meeting that we were going to have had been canceled and that it would not be rescheduled, and that, again, I was wasting my time. That's the last quasi-official contact that I have had with the FBI on the Sarasota situation."