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The Trump administration declassified and released 71 Presidential Daily Briefs on Friday, the 25th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, and the documents show that both the Clinton and Bush White Houses were warned repeatedly that al-Qaeda was interested in hijacking commercial aircraft.
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Shop NowA brief dated December 4, 1998 told the Clinton administration that “Some members of the bin Ladin network have received hijack training, according to various sources, but no group directly tied to bin Ladin’s al-Qa’ida organization has ever carried out an aircraft hijacking.”
An earlier briefing, from September 10, 1998, reported that bin Laden’s preferred option was an attack on American soil, possibly in Washington, using what the document described as “a plane packed with explosives.”
The files also record that operatives carried out a trial run at an unidentified New York airport three years before the attacks, clearing security screening without being stopped.
The best-known document in the release, the August 6, 2001 brief to President Bush, told him the FBI had identified “patterns of suspicious activity inside the U.S. consistent with preparations for hijackings or other attacks.”
CIA Director John Ratcliffe said the release honored both those killed on September 11 and the agency officers who died in counterterrorism operations afterward.
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