Former Mayor of New York Rudy Giuliani has revealed he was offered a $10million check from a Saudi prince in the wake of the 9/11 attacks as he suggested the Arab kingdom was involved in the attacks.
Giuliani, who was mayor of the city when two hijacked planes were flown into the World Trade Center towers, said he tore up the check and said the high ranking official could ‘burn it in hell’.
In an impassioned plea this morning, Giuliani urged Obama to release 28 pages of a report on the attacks that have been kept secret and are believed to show Saudi involvement in the atrocity.
The row over the secret papers dragged on as Obama met with King Salman in Saudi Arabia, but failed to bring up the alleged connections to the September 11 attacks yet again.
‘I was given a check by a Saudi Arabian prince for $10million and he had the tumerity to put out a press release blaming America and Israel for the attack on September 11th,’ he said on Fox and Friends.
GIULIANI: We are entitled to know who killed our loved ones and who almost killed all of us.https://t.co/5P8VPrGLtf
— FOX & Friends (@foxandfriends) April 21, 2016
‘I can’t tell you what I said when I decided to tear up the check and give it back to him because I can’t repeat it on television ‘His money he can keep and go burn it in hell.
‘I don’t only need to know but the American people need to know exactly what was the role of the Saudi Arabian government in the attacks ‘We are entitled to know who killed our loved ones and who almost killed all of us.’
Giuliani’s words came as a former diplomat and congressman who sat on the 9/11 Commission urged President Barack Obama to declassify the 28 pages of the report that allegedly link Saudi Arabia to the attacks.
The hushed-up section of the report is believed to point to Saudi involvement in the 9/11 attacks, which killed nearly 3,000 people.
Obama sat down with Saudi King Salman and other high-ranking officials for hours of talks today, but did not bring up the 9/11 report, the White House confirmed.
Tim Roemer, a former Democrat congressman and ambassador to India who sat on the 9/11 Commission which wrote the redacted report, said the pages should not be kept secret.
He said Obama had a duty to release the information to the public, who he said deserve to know the truth.
However, Roemer added that the panel’s findings ‘did not discover’ any role by ‘senior, high-level’ Saudi government officials.
Meanwhile, in Riyadh, Obama was seen smiling as he chatted with King Salman as they met at a summit of Gulf nations.
There were likely tensions in the room following a proposed bill in the U.S. Congress calling for Riyadh’s immunity from lawsuits to be lifted if any Saudi officials are found to have been involved in the 9/11 attacks.
Obama has said he opposes the bill because it could lead to cases directed against the United States in foreign courts.
Victims’ families have been pushing Congress for the right to sue Saudi Arabia over the death of their loved ones as well as calling for the declassification of the report.
Previous court decisions have ruled that there is insufficient evidence to find Saudi Arabia culpable in the terror attacks, which is why they are now calling for the release of the 28 pages from the 9/11 congressional report which is believed to show a stronger connection to Saudi funding of the attacks.
This has put Obama in a difficult position, with 9/11 families accusing him of siding with the Kingdom and Saudi officials threatening to sell hundreds of billions of dollars of American assets if Congress passes a bill that would allow the government to be sued over the attacks.
Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir has said his country would sell up to $750billion in US treasury securities and other assets before the bill puts them in jeopardy.
The administration has tried to stop Congress from passing the legislation, a bipartisan Senate bill. Earlier this week, Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, indicated that President Obama would veto any such legislation.
Paul Ryan, the House speaker, has also refused to back the legislation, saying that lawmakers need to review the bill ‘to make sure that we’re not making mistakes with our allies’.
