"There’s a number of members of Congress that are looking to basically have a bill ready to go day one in January [2017], to create a new investigation that will not have the limitations and the flaws of the last one," counterintelligence director of the Executive Intelligence Review, Jeff Steinberg told Sputnik.
The 28 page chapter of the 9/11 report, released in June, included a number of intelligence leads implicating Saudi government officials in supporting the hijackers who carried out the terrorist attacks against the United States.
According to Steinberg, the leads were not pursued by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) either intentionally, or through negligence. Further, because of inadequate follow-through, a number of important witnesses fled the country, gained diplomatic immunity and could no longer be pursued by US law enforcement.
A bill to further investigate the 29 pages could include extraditing Saudi nationals for questioning, and reviewing the original CIA and FBI documents that were used to draft the 28 pages, Steinberg said. "The sky is the limit."
Attorney and former US foreign service officer J. Michael Springmann warned that lawmakers trying to pursue the leads pointing at Saudi official complicity in 9/11 still face a "climate of fear."
"The trick is to get these people to do something about [the content of the 28 pages]," he said.
When the Congress returns to Washington, DC the first week of September, the US House of Representatives will vote on a piece of legislation approved unanimously by the Senate to allow private US citizens to sue Saudi nationals.
The Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA) would invalidate Saudi claims of diplomatic immunity, allowing family members of 9/11 victims to bring individuals to court for 2001 the terrorist act.
