100 Years old, Sykes Picot Debate Heats Up

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The Islamic State (IS) group wilfully defies any frontier blocking its route to an Islamic caliphate. According to Tarek Osman, author of Islamism, we are only part-way through a revolution with no clear endgame.“Sykes-Picot was a pillar of a system in the Middle East that we are watching fall apart today, as something new is being formed. Right now, we’re in a fluid, chaotic phase and a new system will not emerge for a number of years,” Osman told Middle East Eye. More from MiddleEastEye.

More on Sykes-Picot: The Agreement as Written

As I noted in my first post on the Sykes-Picot Agreement, which was concluded a century ago this month, “Sykes-Picot” has become a convenient shorthand for the entire constellation of agreements and understandings that contributed to the postwar settlement, agreements spread out from as early as 1915 to as late as 1939, or even later if we include the partition of Palestine. In coming days I’ll be dealing with the actual agreements, but first let’s look at the real Asia Minor Agreement negotiated between Sir Mark Sykes and M. François Georges-Picot in 1916 and what borders it actually envisioned.

Britain and France began discussions of a post-Ottoman settlement on November 23, 1915, with Georges-Picot negotiating with Sir Arthur Nicolson, soon replaced by Sir Mark Sykes,. At that time efforts by David Lloyd George and Herbert Samuel to promote a Jewish state in Palestine were already under way, and Sir Henry McMahon in Egypt was already committing Britain to support an independent Arab state in correspondence with Sharif Hussein of Mecca. Another round of negotiations took place in December, and in February 1916 Sykes visited Petrograd to meet with Russian Foreign Minister Segey Sazonov. Negotiations with the Zionists and the commitments to Sharif Hussein were known to Sykes.

Sir Mark Sykes
F. Georges-Picot

The basic text was ready by May. On May 9, French Ambassador to London Paul Cambon transmitted it in a letter to British Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey, who returned it  with approval on May 16. Signed May 19 and with a formal exchange of notes May 2, the precise date that should be “celebrated” as the centenary is a little slippery.

The agreement’s text is below after the map. Although the agreement gives lip service to the idea of an “independent” Arab stste, it would be subordinate to British and French zones of influence, and both had zones in which they claimed direct control. Britain and France made a umber of guarantees to each other (Palestine would be under international control but with Britain controlling Haifa, Acre, a railway to Egypt and a future railway to Iraq.)

Both parties seemed to recognize that the agreement had potential conflicts, but it was a secret agreement, and intended to remain so. As I’ve tried to make clear, I’m not defending Sykes-Picot, which was imperialist arrogance at its worst;I’m simply saying that, except for a general roe for France in Syria (but then including Mosul) and Britain in Iraq. The status of Mosul and Palestine would be among the first things to change, and of course the whole disposition of Anatolia would change.

One thing that would speed the unraveling of the details of  Sykes-Picot was its sudden revelation by the Bolsheviks in November 1917, which we’ll discuss in Part 3.

Text of Sykes-Picot Agreement

It is accordingly understood between the French and British governments:
That France and Great Britain are prepared to recognize and protect an independent Arab states or a confederation of Arab states (a) and (b) marked on the annexed map, under the suzerainty of an Arab chief.
That in area (a) France, and in area (b) great Britain, shall have priority of right of enterprise and local loans. That in area (a) France, and in area (b) great Britain, shall alone supply advisers or foreign functionaries at the request of the Arab state or confederation of Arab states.

That in the blue area France, and in the red area great Britain, shall be allowed to establish such direct or indirect administration or control as they desire and as they may think fit to arrange with the Arab state or confederation of Arab states.

That in the brown area there shall be established an international administration, the form of which is to be decided upon after consultation with Russia, and subsequently in consultation with the other allies, and the representatives of the Shariff of Mecca.
That great Britain be accorded (1) the ports of Haifa and Acre, (2) guarantee of a given supply of water from the Tigris and Euphrates in area (a) for area (b). His majesty’s government, on their part, undertake that they will at no time enter into negotiations for the cession of Cyprus to any third power without the previous consent of the French government.

That Alexandretta shall be a free port as regards the trade of the British empire, and that there shall be no discrimination in port charges or facilities as regards British shipping and British goods; that there shall be freedom of transit for British goods through Alexandretta and by railway through the blue area, or (b) area, or area (a); and there shall be no discrimination, direct or indirect, against British goods on any railway or against British goods or ships at any port serving the areas mentioned.

That Haifa shall be a free port as regards the trade of France, her dominions and protectorates, and there shall be no discrimination in port charges or facilities as regards French shipping and French goods. There shall be freedom of transit for French goods through Haifa and by the British railway through the brown area, whether those goods are intended for or originate in the blue area, area (a), or area (b), and there shall be no discrimination, direct or indirect, against french goods on any railway, or against French goods or ships at any port serving the areas mentioned.
That in area (a) the Baghdad railway shall not be extended southwards beyond Mosul, and in area (b) northwards beyond Samarra, until a railway connecting Baghdad and Aleppo via the Euphrates valley has been completed, and then only with the concurrence of the two governments.
That Great Britain has the right to build, administer, and be sole owner of a railway connecting Haifa with area (b), and shall have a perpetual right to transport troops along such a line at all times. It is to be understood by both governments that this railway is to facilitate the connection of Baghdad with Haifa by rail, and it is further understood that, if the engineering difficulties and expense entailed by keeping this connecting line in the brown area only make the project unfeasible, that the French government shall be prepared to consider that the line in question may also traverse the Polygon Banias Keis Marib Salkhad Tell Otsda Mesmie before reaching area (b).

For a period of twenty years the existing Turkish customs tariff shall remain in force throughout the whole of the blue and red areas, as well as in areas (a) and (b), and no increase in the rates of duty or conversions from ad valorem to specific rates shall be made except by agreement between the two powers.

There shall be no interior customs barriers between any of the above mentioned areas. The customs duties leviable on goods destined for the interior shall be collected at the port of entry and handed over to the administration of the area of destination.
It shall be agreed that the french government will at no time enter into any negotiations for the cession of their rights and will not cede such rights in the blue area to any third power, except the Arab state or confederation of Arab states, without the previous agreement of his majesty’s government, who, on their part, will give a similar undertaking to the french government regarding the red area.
The British and French government, as the protectors of the Arab state, shall agree that they will not themselves acquire and will not consent to a third power acquiring territorial possessions in the Arabian peninsula, nor consent to a third power installing a naval base either on the east coast, or on the islands, of the Red Sea. This, however, shall not prevent such adjustment of the Aden frontier as may be necessary in consequence of recent Turkish aggression.
The negotiations with the Arabs as to the boundaries of the Arab states shall be continued through the same channel as heretofore on behalf of the two powers.
It is agreed that measures to control the importation of arms into the Arab territories will be considered by the two governments.
I have further the honor to state that, in order to make the agreement complete, his majesty’s government are proposing to the Russian government to exchange notes analogous to those exchanged by the latter and your excellency’s government on the 26th April last. Copies of these notes will be communicated to your excellency as soon as exchanged. I would also venture to remind your excellency that the conclusion of the present agreement raises, for practical consideration, the question of claims of Italy to a share in any partition or rearrangement of turkey in Asia, as formulated in Article 9 of the agreement of the 26th April, 1915, between Italy and the allies.

His Majesty’s Government further consider that the Japanese government should be informed of the arrangements now concluded.

Zuckerberg Recoils on Facebook Allegations, Manual Says Otherwise

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A small editorial team curates the topics and makes the choices for you on what to read and not to read. Zuckerberg needs to read his own manual. Manual is here. Maybe we should trade the name from Facebook to Fakebook or Facecrook.

Facebook has denied that anyone improperly tinkered with the list or that they were instructed to do so. A company spokesman said, “We have received Sen. Thune’s request for more information about how Trending Topics works, and look forward to addressing his questions.” More from CNN.

 

Federalist: Facebook’s news aggregation tool has gained much attention after former workers in charge of the Trending Topics module said the company routinely suppressed conservatives news topics and outlets.

An instruction guide published by The Guardian on Thursday shows that from start to finish the Trending Topics sidebar was designed to allow a small group of Facebook “news curators” to elevate, or suppress, topics and outlets. According to the detailed instruction manual, regardless of how popular a topic or story was on Facebook, it could not be deemed a top national trending topic unless a few websites, such as the New York Times or BBC, had published articles on the topic:

National Story: You should mark a topic as “National Story” importance if it is among the 1-3 top stories of the day. We measure this by checking if it is leading at least 5 of the following 10 news websites: BBC News, CNN, Fox News, The Guardian, NBC News, The New York Times, USA TODAY, The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Yahoo News or Yahoo. Some days, we may not have any “Top Story”-level topics.

Major Story: You should mark a topic as “Major Story” importance if it is THE top story of the day. We measure this by checking if it is leading all 10 of the above news websites. These stories appear approximately 5-7 times each week. Examples: Gunmen kill 12 at Paris satirical newspaper; Ferguson police officer not charged by grand jury.

Nuclear: Reserved for the truly “Holy S**t” stories that happen maybe 1-3 times a year. Leading all 10 websites AND requires editor approval before marking as “nuclear.” Extreme examples are 9/11; major country’s president is shot; Russia declares war with Ukraine, etc. A team lead must approve before a topic can be marked Nuclear

The documents included specific instructions for blacklisting topics and alluded to the existence of a database of all blacklisted topics. There were also detailed instructions on how to manually inject topics through the use of Facebook’s Trend Injector.

A Facebook executive in charge of overseeing the Trending Topics product previously said that the company’s news curators did not have the ability to “insert stories artificially into trending topics.” That same executive and his wife donated $5,400 to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign last October.

U.S. Small Teams Back in Libya

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Libya has a new but rather feeble UN backed government. This has caused still more political conflict in the country and there are divided regions that remain.

The Government of National Accord and the council has worked to gain political power in the divided country, including by appropriating government facilities in Tripoli, such as the Central Bank and the National Oil Corporation, as well as freezing the assets of political opposition members. While the international community hailed the Presidential Council’s arrival as the coming of Libyan unity, events on the ground suggest this is far from reality.

Meanwhile, several Western allied countries have had some small deployments in Libya since 2015 due to Islamic State having an estimated 5 to 6000 fighters in the region. The United States has 2 small teams LPOP’s (listening posts/observation posts) there gathering intelligence, cultivating friendlies and plotting action should the order be given to take on ISIS controlled towns.

U.S. establishes Libyan outposts with eye toward offensive against Islamic State

WaPo: American Special Operations troops have been stationed at two outposts in eastern and western Libya since late 2015, tasked with lining up local partners in advance of a possible offensive against the Islamic State, U.S. officials said.

Two teams totaling fewer than 25 troops are operating from around the cities of Misurata and Benghazi to identify potential ­allies among local armed factions and gather intelligence on threats, according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive mission overseas.

 A 2011 photo shows buildings ravaged by fighting in Sirte, Libya, \an Islamic State stronghold. U.S. Special Operations troops have established outposts in Libya to build relations with Libyan forces moving on Sirte. (Manu Brabo/AP)

The insertion of a tiny group of U.S. personnel into a country rife with militant threats reflects the Obama administration’s worries about the Islamic State’s powerful Libyan branch and the widespread expectations of an expanded campaign against it. For months, the Pentagon has been developing plans for potential action against the group, which has at least several thousand fighters in the coastal city of Sirte and other areas. And the U.S. personnel, whose ongoing presence had not been previously reported, is a sign of the acceleration toward another military campaign in Libya.

The mission is also an illustration of President Obama’s reliance on elite units to advance counterterrorism goals in low-visibility operations.

The activities of the American “contact teams,” as they are known, take place in parallel to those of elite allied forces from France and other European nations in the same areas, U.S. and Libyan officials said.

Officials hope the special operators will ultimately have an outsize impact on the effectiveness of local forces. Special Operations forces in Syria, for instance, have been trying to guide opposition operations and help them capi­tal­ize on foreign air power as they advance on the Islamic State.

“These types of activities can be the difference between success and failure in what the administration refers to as areas outside of active hostilities,” said William F. Wechsler, who was a senior Pentagon official overseeing Special Operations activities until last year. “You’re mapping local networks, both friendly and unfriendly.”

The U.S. troops, who began making visits to Libya last spring and established their twin outposts six months later, have been cultivating relationships among forces that are mobilizing for a possible assault against the Islamic State in its Sirte stronghold.

Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook declined to provide specific information about the U.S. assessment teams. But he said that military personnel had been meeting periodically with a variety of Libyans “in an effort to help them reestablish a safe and secure environment.” The effort is part of a larger Obama administration strategy to bring Libya’s feuding factions together behind a fragile new unity government, which officials believe is best positioned to combat the Islamic State.

In Libya, a key element of the mission is identifying which factions will align themselves with the unity government. Since a civil conflict erupted in 2014, Libya has been dominated by two rival governments in the country’s east and west. The Obama administration and its European allies are hoping the unity government, installed after U.N.-brokered peace talks, can end Libya’s partition, which opened the door to extremists and plunged the oil-rich country into economic crisis.

 

The troops also are assessing security conditions so that, if a broader mission takes place, the United States can move in additional personnel more safely.

“How do you avoid Libya becoming like Syria?” said Paul Scharre, a former Army Ranger and Defense Department official who is now at the Center for a New American Security. “This is one of the tools in your toolbox to stave that off.”

Although the Islamic State is far smaller in Libya than its parent organization in Iraq and Syria, the group and has used similar tactics to enforce its brutal version of Islam, including mass executions, and has launched attacks across the North African nation.

“We’re obviously watching the threats very closely,” a senior administration official said, also speaking on the condition of anonymity.

If the White House does authorize a broader campaign in Libya, it is expected to be on a smaller scale than operations in Iraq and Syria. Apart from the ongoing air campaign against the Islamic State, the United States has more than 5,000 troops on the ground in Iraq, and Obama ­recently expanded the Special Operations force in Syria.

The United States has launched two airstrikes against Islamic State targets in Libya since late 2015, but Pentagon officials have said they have identified dozens of other targets that might be hit if a more sustained operation takes place.

An expanded mission in Libya will be forced to grapple with the same internal divisions that have undermined other foreign attempts to foster stability since 2011. In an illustration of those tribal and political fissues, the two forces preparing to advance on the Islamic State — militia forces loyal to Misurata and army troops under Gen. Khalifa Hifter — have clashed with each other.

The Misuratan forces recognize the unity government in Tripoli; those loyal to Hifter do not. Likewise, three factions have established separate command centers to oversee an offensive against the Islamic State in Sirte, including Hifter; the unity government; and an alternate prime minister in Tripoli, who continues to assert his authority.

American officials fear that uncoordinated offensives will only afford the Islamic State an opportunity to grow stronger.

At the same time, some officials privately complain that foreign support for eastern forces loyal to Hifter — including from U.S. ­allies France and Egypt — makes consolidation of the unity government’s power more difficult.

“We have been working with our allies to urge focus on ISIL and not fueling rivalries across the country,” a senior U.S. official said, using an acronym for the Islamic State. Local factions are being asked to do the same, and “as the ISIL threat becomes clearer and clearer, it becomes easier to find Libyans who are prepared to do that.”

The French Embassy in Washington declined to comment on French military activity in Libya. “Our priority in Libya is full support to the government and not support to a particular force,” a French diplomatic official said.

A spokeswoman for the Egyptian Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Military officials have sought to keep the ongoing presence of U.S. personnel quiet, in part because of Libyans’ sensitivities about foreign troops and also because of the vulnerability of small teams operating in a country gripped by lawlessness. Benghazi was the site of the 2012 attacks that killed four Americans, including the U.S. ambassador.

Last December, a visit by one team of special operators to far western Libya was made public when local militia forces took photos of the Americans with their assault rifles, grenade launchers and GPS devices. The U.S. personnel promptly departed.

The Pentagon is seeking to enhance protection of its advance force from the sky. This year, Italy granted the United States permission to use Italian airfields to launch armed drone flights over Libya for defensive purposes.

Wechsler said the Pentagon had been willing to accept the dangers faced by such teams because of the value they provided to subsequent military operations.

“When the military is dropping Hellfires from a drone, there is by design a zero percent chance of
an American getting killed,” Wechlser said. “But when you’re trying to do the important work to understand the human terrain and build up surrogates, the risk . . . can never be mitigated down to zero.”

 

80,000 More 9/11 Pages at Tampa FBI

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Like these journalists, I have been watching this for at least 4 years myself. Even more so, I used to live in Sarasota and came close to building a home in Prestancia.

I have one personal encounter with the Tampa FBI office several years ago, calling them to talk about a subject I was exploring on CAIR, the duty agent asked if I was an Islamophobe….what? He then hung up on me. Sheesh…Meanwhile, lets go beyond the 28 pages in question regarding the Saudis involved in the 9/11 plot and attack. There are more out there then were have been told and at least 80,000 are in the Tampa FBI field office. Hummmm…. to be sure however, there are thousands of foreign nationals who own and or rent houses in the United States. Some are here under a falsely applied diplomatic cover while others are here under that EB5 visa program or one of 38 others.

If memory serves me, 2 of the hijackers rented a home in Nokomis, just a few miles south of Sarasota and took flight lessons at the Venice, Florida airport, also within just a few miles. Both hijackers are well known, Mohamed Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi.

 

Further, Esam Ghazzawi, a longtime adviser to Sultan’s father, Prince Fahd, owned the Sarasota home and there were some flights before 9/11 and after 9/11 that included the original city of Lexington, Kentucky that flew to Saudi Arabia. More here.

 photo courtesy of Bill Warner

The FBI Is Keeping 80,000 Secret Files on the Saudis and 9/11

DailyBeast: The secret ‘28 pages’ are just the start. The FBI has another 80,000 classified documents, many of which deal with Saudi connections to the 9/11 terror plot. What’s the Bureau got?

The Obama administration may soon release 28 classified pages from a congressional investigation that allegedly links Saudis in the United States to the 9/11 attackers. A former Republican member of the 9/11 Commission alleged Thursday that there was “clear evidence” of support for the hijackers from Saudi officials.

But in Florida, a federal judge is weighing whether to declassify portions of some 80,000 classified pages that could reveal far more about the hijackers’ Saudis connections and their activities in the weeks preceding the worst attack on U.S. soil.

The still-secret files speak to one of the strangest and most enduring mysteries of the 9/11 attacks. Why did the Saudi occupants of a posh house in gated community in Sarasota, Florida, suddenly vanish in the two weeks prior to the attacks? And had they been in touch with the leader of the operation, Mohamed Atta, and two of his co-conspirators?

No way, the FBI says, even though the bureau’s own agents did initially suspect the family was linked to some of the hijackers. On further scrutiny, those connections proved unfounded, officials now say.

But a team of lawyers and investigative journalists has found what they say is hard evidence pointing in the other direction. Atta did visit the family before he led 18 men to their deaths and murdered 3,000 people, they say, and phone records connect the house to members of the 9/11 conspiracy.

The FBI did initially suspect something was off when their agents descended on the Sarasota house shortly after the attacks, tipped off by suspicious neighbors who had always found the family aloof.

Investigators found signs that the occupants had left in a hurry. Food was left on the counter and the refrigerator was stocked. Toys were still floating in the back-yard swimming pool. Dirty diapers were left in a bathroom. It also looked like the people who lived there weren’t coming back. The mail was piling up outside, and the door to an empty safe was wide open. Three cars remained parked in the garage and driveway.

The FBI later said it came up with reasonable answers to explain this odd behavior. But not until after the Tampa field office opened an investigation that claimed to find “numerous connections” between the family and the 9/11 hijackers.

The final answers about what really happened in Sarasota may lie somewhere in those 80,000 pages. To be sure, not all of them concern the FBI’s investigation of the Saudi family. The documents represent the entire case file of the 9/11 attacks at the Tampa field office. But some subset surely will reveal more about what the FBI knew, and when, and why it reached a different conclusion.

For the past two years, U.S. district court judge William Zloch has been going through the files, page-by-page, to determine what information that pertains to the Saudi case can be released.

But based on about three dozen pages that had been made public already under the Freedom of Information Act, and the work of the reporters, this is the picture that emerges of life at 4224 Escondito Circle, a three-bedroom house in an exclusive community called Prestancia, in the weeks before 9/11.

 photo courtesy Bill Warner

The house was occupied by a Saudi couple, Abdulazzi al-Hiijjii and his wife Anoud, and their three small children. Anoud’s father, Esam Ghazzawi, a financier and interior designer, owned the home, along with his American-born wife, Deborah.

The family largely kept to themselves. A neighbor told the Tampa Bay Times that Abdulazzi said he was a student, and that his wife was religious. “He would come over for a cigarette and a drink and to get away from that praying every two hours,” the neighbor said.

But the family’s behavior, and undoubtedly their national origin, drew new suspicion after the 9/11 attacks. In April 2002, “based upon repeated citizen calls,” the FBI opened an investigation, which “revealed many connections” between a member of the family “and individuals associated with the terrorist attacks,” according to one of the few released documents.

Those jaw-dropping claims remained largely unknown for years. In part, that’s because the FBI now says that the initial reports came from an agent who couldn’t support his suspicions. Investigators later interviewed members of the family and found they had left the U.S. because Abdulazzi had just graduated and gotten a new job in Saudi Arabia.

The Sarasota family also had no connections to the 9/11 terrorists, the FBI concluded. (Their names are redacted in the reports, for privacy, but they have been publicly confirmed.)

Case closed? Hardly. In 2011, a pair of Irish journalists, Anthony Summers and Robbyn Swan, who were publishing a book on the 10th anniversary of the attacks, contacted Dan Christensen, a veteran Florida reporter. They’d heard about the Sarasota family and had a confidential source—an unnamed counterterrorism official—who claimed to have detailed knowledge of the FBI’s investigation into the couple, including analysis of phone records that showed calls to and from the house connected to the hijackers. What’s more, the source also said that visitor logs from the security gate of the community showed that Atta, along with co-hijacker Ziad Jarrah, had come to the house, and that those logs had been turned over to the FBI.

The journalists teamed up and published an exposé on Christensen’s independent news site, FloridaBulldog.org, and on the front page of the Miami Herald. The story was an instant sensation, prompting the FBI to publicly declare that the case had been investigated and found to have no merit.

Sen. Bob Graham, the Florida Democrat who had led the congressional inquiry that produced those 28 pages on Saudi connections, was stunned by the Sarasota allegations. The FBI hadn’t given Graham’s committee any information about the family or their suspected ties to Atta and other hijackers. Even the initial reports the FBI later said proved wrong weren’t disclosed to congressional investigators, Graham said. The journalists findings “open[ed] the door to a new chapter of investigation as to the depth of the Saudi role in 9/11,” Graham said at the time.

The FBI continued to publicly knock down the Sarasota connection. Graham eventually confronted the bureau and asked to see files from the Tampa field office. As he told The Daily Beast’s Eleanor Clift for a forthcoming article, Graham saw records that did show alleged contacts between the family and three hijackers, and further lines of inquiry that investigators could follow.

Later, Graham himself was confronted by the FBI’s then deputy director, Sean Joyce, who told him, “Basically everything about 9/11 was known and I was wasting my time and I should get a life,” Graham said.

For his part, Christensen took the government to court, suing under the Freedom of Information Act for the files and records to substantiate—or refute—his sources’ claims.

Thomas Julin, Christensen’s lawyer, told The Daily Beast that initially the FBI claimed it had no records. But when Julin told officials that Graham was willing to testify that he’d actually seen some, the Justice Department admitted to having found 35 pages of material, which it released.

It’s those pages, many of which bear heavy redactions, that show the FBI agents’ initial suspicions, the fact that an FBI case was open, and that investigators had found “many connections” between the family and the hijackers. There are also letters and memos from FBI officials dismissing the 9/11 connection as unfounded.

Those 35 pages were all the FBI could find about the alleged Sarasota conspiracy, officials insisted.

Zloch, the judge in the case, was not persuaded. He ordered the FBI to conduct a new search of its files, using a method that Christensen and his lawyer suggested. This time, they hit the mother lode.

“The FBI found some additional responsive documents which it produced,” Julin said. “But it also found 80,266 pages of material in the Tampa Field Office of the FBI which had been marked with the file number for the FBI’s PENTTBOM investigation.”

 

PENTTBOM, which stands for Pentagon/Twin Towers Bombing, is the codename for the FBI’s investigation of the 9/11 attacks.

The judge ordered the FBI to hand over all 80,000-plus pages on May 1, 2014. He is still going through them to determine which may be released and has given no indication when he might finish.

Zloch’s task is made all the more painstaking by the strict security rules governing review of classified documents, even for a sitting judge. The files are kept in a secure facility, and he can only remove a portion at a time.

It’s still not clear how many of the files from the Tampa field office relate to the investigation of the Saudi family and the house on Escondito Circle. But Christensen believes those files will reveal the underlying reasons for the FBI’s early suspicions. And he’s prepared to be proven wrong.

The FBI, for instance, says that phone records searches showed no links to the house and the hijackers. Christensen’s confidential source says the opposite is true. If the FBI is right, Christensen asks, then why not just release the information and put the dispute to rest?

“I’ve spent five years on this. I’ve got other things to do. If there’s nothing to this, then tell me,” Christensen told The Daily Beast.

The public record so far has hardly allayed Christensen and others belief that there’s more to the Sarasota story than the FBI is telling. Indeed, they say, the FBI is contradicting its own investigators. Graham told The Daily Beast that the FBI questioned the reliability of the agent who filed the first reports about the family and possible connections to the attackers. They said he was “not a good writer and should not be taken as the last word,” Graham said.

But that agent was reportedly promoted after the 9/11 attacks and assigned to a counter-intelligence task force. The bureau doesn’t usually give new jobs to agents who can’t do basic field work, particularly on the biggest case in FBI history.

As far as Christensen is concerned, the truth will out. But the FBI’s silence is telling.

Not to be content with just the 80,000 pages, though, Christensen has also been pressing to get those 28 pages from the congressional inquiry released. They currently have an appeal pending before the Interagency Security Classification Appeals Panel, an obscure group within the National Archives that has the power to declassify the material, in whole or in part.

An Archives official wouldn’t comment on the appeal, except to say that the panel has yet to officially take it up. According to a public docket, the appeal was filed in July 2014.

President Obama could elect to declassify the pages himself. Or he could defer to the judgment of the panel. Doing so would give him some political cover. It would also allow the president to make good on his commitment to finally let the public see what those pages have to say.

If that day finally comes, credit will surely go to Graham, who has pressed for their release for years. But some share may also be claimed by Christensen and Julin, whose hunt for the Sarasota connection led them to shake loose the 28 pages, too.

Both men said that the release of that better-known material may ultimately help bring the Sarasota files to light.

“If the 28 pages are declassified, that might persuade the judge to move forward,” Julin said. He doesn’t think the congressional report has anything to say about Sarasota—because, after all, Graham has said the FBI gave his committee nothing on the case—but “the material might help Judge Zloch see the wider significance of the events in Sarasota and persuade him that some or all of the records have not been properly classified,” Julin said.

Christensen noted that the Obama administration didn’t publicly acknowledge that it might soon release the 28 pages until after Graham and other lawmakers appeared in a recent episode of 60 Minutes about the controversy. He said he hopes the judge saw the show, and that the “intense national interest” that’s brewing around Saudi connections to 9/11 might resonate with him.

Two years or waiting for the judge’s ruling may be close to an end. “I believe this is not a stalling tactic at all. The judge is doing what he he as to comply” with rules for handling classified information, Christensen said. “But I would urge him to speed it up.”

 

 

 

 

House Republicans Win Obamacare Lawsuit

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Today, when reporters questioned Josh Earnest about the Obamacare lawsuit loss to the House, his response: “They’ve been losing for 6 years and they’ll lose it again”. The judge ordered a ‘stay’ on the money.

FNC: A federal judge ruled Thursday for House Republicans in a challenge brought against the Obama administration over the legality of certain spending under ObamaCare.

U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer ruled the spending unconstitutional — while putting the decision on hold pending appeal.

The ruling Thursday marks a win for House Republicans who brought the politically charged legal challenge, and a legal setback for the administration.

“Today’s ruling by the DC federal court is an important step toward restoring the separation of powers and stopping President Obama’s power grab. The Constitution is very clear: it is Congress’ job to write our laws and it is the President’s duty to enforce them,” House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., said in a statement.

At issue was a $175 million program authorizing payments to insurers that Republicans claimed were not appropriated by Congress. On the question of whether the money could be distributed anyway under another program, Collyer wrote in her opinion: “It cannot.”

“None of the Secretaries’ extra-textual arguments – whether based on economics, ‘unintended’ results, or legislative history – is persuasive,” she wrote. “The Court will enter judgment in favor of the House of Representatives and enjoin the use of unappropriated monies to fund reimbursements due to insurers” under that section.

Collyer said the law is “clear,” and money was not allocated for that program.

She then said she would stay the injunction, giving the administration a chance to appeal. Collyer, with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, is a George W. Bush appointee nominated in 2002.

The controversial payments to insurers were meant to reimburse them over a decade to reduce co-payments for lower-income people.

The House argued that Congress never specifically appropriated that money and denied an administration request for it, but that the administration is spending the money anyway.

The White House previously described the case as a “partisan attack” and predicted it would be dismissed.

Asked Thursday about the latest decision, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said this isn’t Republicans’ first legal fight over ObamaCare but warned “they’ll lose it again.”

He reiterated that the administration is confident in its legal arguments here.

The administration is expected to appeal Thursday’s ruling to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

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“Paying out Section 1402 reimbursements without an appropriation thus violates the Constitution,” Collyer wrote in her decision. “Congress authorized reduced cost sharing but did not appropriate monies for it, in the FY 2014 budget or since. Congress is the only source for such an appropriation, and no public money can be spent without one.”

The ruling is not final; the Obama administration will near certainly appeal this ruling to an appellate court.

While the Affordable Care Act authorized these cost-sharing subsidies when it was passed in 2010, the House lawsuit says it never appropriated the necessary funding to be sent over to Health and Human Services. Here’s the relevant bit of the lawsuit on this issue:

Congress has not appropriated any funds for Section 1402 Offset Program payments to Insurers for Fiscal Years 2014 or 2015.

Notwithstanding the lack of any congressional appropriation for Section 1402 Offset Program payments, defendants [Jack] Lew and the Treasury Department, at the direction of defendants [Sylvia] Burwell and HHS, began making Section 1402 Offset Program payments to Insurers in January 2014, and, upon information and belief, continues to make such payments.

The Office of Management and Budget (“OMB”) has reported that Section 1402 Offset Program payments to Insurers for Fiscal Year 2014 were estimated to be $3.978 billion. Later, the lawsuit argues that “the House has been injured, and will continue to be injured, by the unconstitutional actions of defendants [Treasury Secretary Jack] Lew … which, among other things, usurp the House’s legislative authority.” More here from Vox.