A batch of previously classified presidential intelligence documents released by the Trump administration on Friday shows that both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush received repeated warnings that Osama bin Laden's network was planning to hijack commercial aircraft and strike the United States. The records, drawn from presidential daily briefs and CIA intelligence memorandums, reveal that U.S. agencies had tracked al-Qaeda's support structure inside American borders for years before September 11, 2001.
What the documents contain
The intelligence picture assembled across those records is specific. A September 10, 1998 presidential daily brief noted that bin Laden's preferred target was Washington, D.C., and raised the possibility that his network could fly a plane loaded with explosives into an American city. Three months later, a December 4, 1998 PDB stated that members of the bin Laden network had received hijack training, while acknowledging that no group directly tied to al-Qaeda had carried out an aircraft hijacking at that point. The same brief noted that bin Laden could be weighing operations against U.S. aircraft.
The trail extended beyond planning. Operatives had already conducted a trial run at an unidentified New York airport three years before the 2001 attacks, according to the documents. The plotters' stated objective was to use hijacked flights to secure the release of two imprisoned figures: Shaykh 'Umar 'Abd al-Rahman and Ramzi Yousef.
Throughout 1998, intelligence agencies tracked bin Laden's movements and support network across New York, California, Texas, Michigan, and Florida. The August 6, 2001 presidential daily brief delivered to Bush reported that the FBI had identified patterns of suspicious activity inside the country consistent with hijacking preparations, along with recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York. Al-Qaeda members, including some who were U.S. citizens, had resided in or traveled to the United States for years, that document states. Weeks before the attacks, a separate brief informed Bush that the FBI was running approximately 70 field investigations it believed were connected to bin Laden.
The declassification order
CIA Director John Ratcliffe authorized the release of 71 presidential daily briefs, stating the action honored lives lost on September 11 and recognized CIA officers who subsequently died in the fight that followed. The Friday release is part of a broader effort by the Trump administration to open classified records on major historical events. In its second term, the administration has also released classified files on the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King Jr.