President Obama has not read the the classified 28 pages of the 9/11 report that refers to Saudi Arabia’s role in the 2011 terrorist attacks.
White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest confirmed during today’s briefing that the president had been briefed on the contents of the pages, but hadn’t read them personally.
“The president obviously reads a lot of material on a day to day basis,” he said. “I’m not sure that he felt that it was necessary for him to read those 28 pages.”
Earnest confirmed that Obama wasn’t opposed to reading the pages, but hadn’t gotten around it. He cited intelligence officials who had signaled that the release of those pages would likely occur at the end of June.
Speculation surrounding the classified pages suggests that there is information implicating the Saudi government in the attacks.
CIA Director John Brennan warned against the release of the pages in an interview on Sunday.
“I think some people may seize upon that uncorroborated, unvetted information that was in there that was basically just a collation of this information that came out of FBI files, and to point to Saudi involvement, which I think would be very, very inaccurate,” Brennan said on Meet the Press.
Earnest asserted that although Obama and Saudi Arabia’s King Salman spoke for two hours during a visit to the country, the 28 pages did not come up in the meeting.
“I assure you they covered a wide variety of topics, but this was not one of them,” Earnest said.