The 28 pages

The chapter’s opening finding: “some of the September 11 hijackers, while in the United States, apparently had contacts with individuals who may be connected to the Saudi Government.” It adds that the inquiry “did not attempt to investigate and assess the accuracy and significance of this information independently,” and handed the matter to the agencies. [1]

Its main names were Omar al-Bayoumi, who FBI reports going back to 1999 said might be a Saudi intelligence officer and who gave the hijackers Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar “substantial assistance” in San Diego; Osama Bassnan, who the pages say, with his wife, received financial support from the Saudi ambassador and his wife; and Fahad al-Thumairy, an accredited Saudi diplomat and imam in Los Angeles. The pages also note that Bayoumi drew a monthly salary from a Saudi company tied to the Ministry of Defense. [1]

One detail people still quote: a phone book belonging to the captured al Qaeda figure Abu Zubaydah held a number linked to a Colorado company that managed the home of Prince Bandar, then the Saudi ambassador. A November 2002 FBI response recorded in the pages says “CIA traces have revealed no direct links between numbers found in Zubaida’s phone book and numbers in the United States.” [1]

On release, the Republican committee chairman Devin Nunes said the chapter “does not put forward vetted conclusions, but rather unverified leads that were later fully investigated.” The top Democrat, Adam Schiff, said the intelligence community and the 9/11 Commission had been “never able to find sufficient evidence” to back the leads up. [1]

Their reference point was the Commission’s 2004 finding that there was “no evidence that the Saudi government as an institution or senior Saudi officials individually funded the organization.” The Commission added a qualifier that is often left out: Saudi Arabia was a place where al Qaeda raised money, and charities with Saudi government sponsorship might have diverted funds to it. [2]

The 28 pages were the start, not the end. After President Biden ordered a declassification review in 2021, the FBI released files that went much further on Bayoumi, including a 2017 memo saying he had been a paid Saudi intelligence asset. [1][2] In 2025 a federal judge ruled the families’ suit against Saudi Arabia could go ahead. [3] See the Bayoumi file and the lawsuit.