Jeff Sessions, Rex Tillerson Mark 9/11 Anniversary

Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson both gave remarks on the 16th anniversary of the deadliest terrorist attack in history Monday.

“Like all of you, I remember where I was on that Tuesday morning,” Sessions said at the Department of Justice. “And like all of you, we remember the sight of fellow Americans dying before our eyes, and the sound of our loved ones’ frightened voices through the telephone.”

Straying further into the territory President Donald Trump and other senior administration officials refused to go: “They seek to impose their speech codes, their religion, their theocracy,” Sessions said of the radical Islamist perpetrators of 9/11. “For these extremists, its more than religion; its ideology. We have no choice but to defend against it. We cannot yield. We will not yield.”

He went on to praise his once and future department for the vital role it played in the frantic days and months that followed the radical Islamic terrorist attack on the American Homeland, explaining:

Many of you faced incredible demands in responding to the new threat, to change completely from one kind of work to another without failing in your basic duties. People worked incredible hours. No one knew the extent of the terrorist network, what kind of attack might come next or where the next attack may come.

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The Department of Justice was at the center of much of country’s response. Many Americans had difficulty adjusting to the new uncertainty. But this Department fulfilled its responsibility with brilliance, determination, effectiveness, and courage. Few if any would have predicted that we would have gone 16 years without another such attack.

Sessions also made reference to the president, who was in Manhattan on that life and history-changing morning 16 years ago. “As a New Yorker, President Trump has never forgotten that day and the friends he lost,” he said.

Secretary Tillerson also took the opportunity to remember the five-year anniversary of another September 11 terrorist tragedy, the attack on the American diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya. “This date also marks a solemn tragedy where four Americans, including two of our State Department colleagues, were killed in a terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya. Their loss will always weigh heavy in our heart,” he wrote in his 9/11 statement.