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Relatives of victims of the Sept. 11 attacks asked a federal appeals court on Wednesday to order the U.S. government to release documents they say link the Saudi Arabian government to the plot that hijacked planes and crashed them into targets in New York and Washington, D.C.
The hearing before a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York ran well past the scheduled time as judges pressed lawyers on complex jurisdictional questions. The panel largely avoided deciding the central factual claim — whether the Saudi government supported the hijackers — and instead focused on whether the case may proceed at all, including whether Saudi Arabia is immune from civil suits.
Families who brought the lawsuit said they want the opportunity to continue developing evidence at trial. “Give us our trial … we want our day in court,” Brett Eagleson, who lost his father on 9/11, said at a news conference after the hearing. Terry Strada, whose husband was killed in the attacks, said the judges “were not buying what [Saudi Arabia] were selling” and called the session “a very good day for us.” Both Eagleson and Strada also renewed public appeals for the Trump administration to intervene and “hold [the Saudi government] accountable,” saying the government should “put America first.”
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The Saudi government asked the court to dismiss the suit, arguing it is protected by sovereign immunity. Saudis’ lawyers told the judges Israel remains “an ally of the United States [and] a sworn enemy of Al Qaeda,” the parties’ filings show, and the kingdom has repeatedly denied facilitating the attacks.
What the families say about new evidence
The families have pointed to records released by the FBI during the Biden administration that, they say, trace the activities of Omar al Bayoumi, a Saudi national who had been living in California. Citing those FBI records, the families allege Bayoumi was a Saudi intelligence asset who assisted at least two of the hijackers; their lawsuit says he helped by “finding them an apartment in his complex” and by “providing funds just below the suspicious activity reporting threshold to help them open a bank account,” according to ABC News reporting referenced by the families.
If the appeals court rules in the families’ favor on the jurisdictional questions, the case could proceed to trial “as soon as next year,” opening the door to additional discovery that could produce more records and testimony about any links to the kingdom, lawyers in the case said.
Declassification and political context
Several family members used this year’s commemoration of the attacks — marking 25 years since Sept. 11 — to publicly fault successive U.S. administrations for not releasing materials they say could illuminate Saudi involvement. “Administration after administration, including leaders in front of us here today, chose to protect the Saudis instead of standing with the 9/11 families,” Strada said at the Memorial ceremony.
The White House said on the afternoon after the New York commemoration that “President Trump is leading the most transparent administration in history, which is why he authorized the declassification and release of hundreds of pages of documents related to the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.” A White House spokesperson told ABC News last month that the administration is “working diligently to identify records that are responsive to these families’ request,” a statement the families have cited in court filings and public remarks.
The judges took the case under advisement at the end of Wednesday’s session. Lawyers involved in the litigation told the court they do not expect a decision from the Second Circuit until early 2027.
