Tag: 9/11

Mike Pence shares 9/11 conspiracy theory about Qassem Soleimani in attempt to justify killing

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Mike Pence has promoted an unsubstantiated theory linking the 9/11 terrorist attacks to Iran in his defence of the Trump administration’s assassination of Qassem Soleimani.

Donald Trump‘s vice president posted a Twitter thread on Saturday in which he described Iran’s top military commander as “an evil man responsible for killing thousands of Americans”.

In the thread, Mr Pence claimed Soleimani had “assisted in the clandestine travel to Afghanistan of 10 of the 12 terrorists who carried out the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States”.

However, his accusation is undermined by the conclusions of the official government report on the attacks.

The 9/11 commission report found “no evidence that Iran or Hezbollah was aware of the planning for what later became the 9/11 attack”.

The report added: “At the time of their travel through Iran, the al-Qaeda operatives themselves were probably not aware of the specific details of their future operation.”

Soleimani’s killing is a major escalation in US-Iran tensions and has sparked fears of a direct war between the two countries.

The White House has said the assassination was a “decisive defensive action to protect US personnel abroad”.

In response to the vice president, foreign policy experts were quick to point out there were 19 terrorists who carried out the 9/11 attacks, not 12, and the majority of them came from US allies Saudi Arabia.

Katie Waldman, Mr Pence’s press secretary, later clarified that the vice president was referring to 12 of the 19 hijackers who “transited through Afghanistan”.

“For those asking: 12 of the 19 transited through Afghanistan. Ten of those 12 were assisted by Soleimani,” Ms Waldman wrote, without providing any further evidence for the commander’s involvement.

The 9/11 report does acknowledge at least eight of the hijackers “transited Iran on their way to or from Afghanistan”, but this is thought to be because they were “taking advantage of the Iranian practice of not stamping Saudi passports”.

Although Soleimani was a senior figure in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps at the time of the attacks, he is not named in the 9/11 commission report.

It is also unclear why the commander, a leading military figure in a majority Shia Muslim country, would have assisted al-Qaeda, a militant Sunni Islamist group with links to Saudi Arabia.

In a 2018 study by the think tank New America, al-Qaeda is said to view Iran as a “hostile entity” and found “no evidence of cooperation between al-Qaeda and Iran on planning or carrying out terrorist attacks” in the documents studied.

Mike Pompeo, the US secretary of state, said in 2019 he had no doubt “there is a connection between the Islamic Republic of Iran and al-Qaeda.”

[The Independent]

Reality

See pages 240-241.

Trump Pushes Baseless Smear That Ilhan Omar ‘Partied’ on 9/11

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President Donald Trump on Wednesday used his Twitter account to boost a baseless smear claiming that Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) danced at an event last week on the anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks, a claim that’s based on footage that wasn’t actually taken from that day.

Trump’s tweet circulated a video from conservative personality Terrence Williams, in which Williams declared that Omar “partied on the anniversary of 9/11.” In his video, Williams comments on footage of the Muslim congresswoman dancing and fumes that she’s disrespecting the memory of the Sept. 11 attacks.

But the footage of Omar dancing actually came from a Sept. 13 event hosted by the Congressional Black Caucus and wasn’t taken on the eleventh, as Williams and Trump wrongly claimed. 

Trump, however, used Williams’ video to declare that Omar would help Republicans win Minnesota. “Ilhan Omar, a member of AOC Plus 3, will win us the Great State of Minnesota,” the president tweeted. “The new face of the Democrat Party!” 

Williams’ original tweet was deleted from Twitter at some point on Wednesday. Twitter confirmed to The Daily Beast that the video post was not removed by the social-media site’s administrators but was instead deleted by Williams or someone with access to his Twitter account.

Williams did not respond to a request for comment.

Omar blasted Trump’s smear on Wednesday, tweeting that he has put her life in danger.

“The President of the United States is continuing to spread lies that put my life at risk,” she wrote. “What is Twitter doing to combat this misinformation?”

Trump has frequently targeted Omar with smears, inspiring death threats against the Somali-American lawmaker. In July, Trump suggested that Omar had married her own brother to commit immigration fraud—a baseless claim that’s become increasingly popular on the right, despite being based entirely on a single, anonymous message-board post. 

[The Daily Beast]

Trump Lies and tells 9/11 first responders: ‘I was down there also’

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Donald Trump signed the September 11 Victim Compensation Fund on Monday at the White House Rose Garden while reminding first responders that he was also in New York City at the time of the historic terror attacks. 

“I was down there also,” the president said to an audience of 60 first responders and their families who had gathered in Washington to witness the signing ceremony. “But I’m not considering myself a first responder,” he added. 

The president celebrated the first responders for their service in the single deadliest terror attack in US history while signing a bill that effectively makes the victims’s health care compensation fund permanent. Many of the first responders and other victims have continued to suffer debilitating medical issues due to the debris and destruction that blanketed downtown Manhattan in the wake of the attacks responsible for nearly 3,000 deaths.

“I spent a lot of time down there with you,” the president added, appearing to suggest without evidence that he participated in either rescue efforts or surveying the damage after the attacks.

Mr Trump also joked with the first responders that the stage set up in the White House Rose Garden might fall as they were all convening for a photo. He added that if the stage falls, the responders “are not falling very far”.

While there is no evidence to indicate Mr Trump was at ground zero — the site of the terror attacks — during or immediately after the events, an interview with the president from that day features him discussing how one of his buildings had allegedly become “the tallest” in the city after the Twin Towers were destroyed. 

Speaking with a local TV station hours after the attacks, Mr Trump described an “amazing phone call” he received about 40 Wall Street, a building he owned that “was the second-tallest building in downtown Manhattan, and it was actually before the World Trade Centre the tallest.”

“When they built the World Trade Centre it became known as the second-tallest, and now it’s the tallest,” he said. “And I just spoke to my people, and they said it’s the most unbelievable sight, it’s probably seven or eight blocks away from the World Trade Centre, and yet Wall Street is littered with two feet of stone and brick and mortar and steel.”

Mr Trump’s claims his building was the tallest in downtown Manhattan was not accurate from the very start, according to reports.

On Monday, the president described the group of first responders present at the White House as a “great looking group of people”.

“You inspire all of humanity,” he said.

First responders of the September 11 attacks had been frequently visiting Capitol Hill in recent weeks to battle Republican leadership in high-profile public hearings surrounding the victims compensation fund, which several GOP leaders wanted to prevent from getting a vote. 

They were joined by comedian and activist Jon Stewart, who slammed Republicans like Senate Leader Mitch McConnell for refusing to vote on the bill that would extend health care benefits to victims of the attacks through 2092.

The signing ceremony arrived after the Senate approved a final version of the plan last week that would add over $10bn (£8.2bn) over ten years to the victim compensation fund. Funds had been depleted and awards were sharply cut in recent years amid fears that Congress would not provide necessary funding to keep it available to victims of the terror attacks.

[The Independent]

Donald Trump posts video of IIhan Omar with footage of NYC 9/11 attack

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President Donald Trump posted a video criticizing freshmen Rep. Ilhan Omar, using footage of the Twin Towers burning on 9/11 to denounce her recent comments about the attacks. 

The video was criticized by Democrats, who accused the president of using out-of-context comments and video of one of America’s most horrific and devastating terrorist attacks  to slam a political foe. 

The 43-second video, which Trump pinned to the top of his Twitter account, is set to dramatic music and shows the Twin Towers burning, New Yorkers covered in debris and the aftermath of the 2001 attack at the Pentagon. It is coupled with footage of Omar’s recent comments, referencing the attacks as, “something” done by “some people.” 

Omar has been heavily criticized by conservatives for the remarks, including by members of Congress and a Fox News host who questioned her allegiance to the United States. 

Democrats have argued the comments were taken out-of-context and Omar was attempting to differentiate terrorists from all Muslims. 

Trump’s video shows Omar’s comments repetitively then switches to a black screen with the words “some people did something?” The video then shows the moment one of the jetliners crashed into one of the towers and people running in fear as the buildings collapsed.

The video ends with the words “September 11, 2001. We remember” stretched across the screen. 

Democrats accused the president of jeopardizing Omar’s life with the post, arguing the content was geared to incite Trump followers. A New York man was arrested last week after allegedly threatening to kill Omar, one of the two first Muslim women elected to Congress, by putting a “bullet in her (expletive) skull.”

Fellow freshman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who has also been a target of Trump and other Republicans, called on fellow lawmakers to denounce the president and his attack on Omar. 

“Members of Congress have a duty to respond to the President’s explicit attack today,” she wrote on Twitter. “@IlhanMN’s life is in danger. For our colleagues to be silent is to be complicit in the outright, dangerous targeting of a member of Congress. We must speak out.”

Along with the call to fellow lawmakers, Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., posted a photo of a display at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. The photo showed a quote at the museum from a theologian who was imprisoned during Adolf Hitler’s rule in Germany. 

[USA Today]

Trump Boasts He Knew of Bin Laden Before 9/11 Attacks: ‘I Pointed Him Out in My Book’

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President Donald Trump took to Twitter this morning to claim that he called for the capture of late al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden years before the terrorist group’s 9/11 attacks.

“Of course we should have captured Osama bin Laden long before we did. I pointed him out in my book just BEFORE the attack on the World Trade Center. President Clinton famously missed his shot. We paid Pakistan Billions of Dollars & they never told us he was living there. Fools!” Trump tweeted, after he bashed the U.S. military in an interview on Fox News Sunday for not killing bin Laden sooner.

“We no longer pay Pakistan the $Billions because they would take our money and do nothing for us, Bin Laden being a prime example, Afghanistan being another,” he added. “They were just one of many countries that take from the United States without giving anything in return. That’s ENDING!”

However, the president’s claims that he called for the capture of bin Laden are questionable at best.

In his book The America We Deserve, which Trump referenced as proof that he was onto al-Qaeda before 9/11, but the following passage — the only time bin Laden is mentioned, per Politifact — shows that he did not have a specific intuition about bin Laden, and was instead criticizing America’s erratic policies in the Middle East at the time:

“Instead of one looming crisis hanging over us, we face a bewildering series of smaller crises, flash points, stand offs, and hot spots. We’re not playing the chess game to end all chess games anymore. We’re playing tournament chess – one master against many rivals. One day we’re assured that Iraq is under control, the UN inspectors have done their work, everything’s fine, not to worry. The next day the bombing begins. One day we’re told that a shadowy figure named Osama bin Laden is public enemy number one, and U.S. jet fighters lay waste to his camp in Afghanistan. He escapes back under some rock, and a few news cycles later, it’s on to a new enemy and a new crisis.”

During the early days of his 2016 campaign, Trump repeated the same claim, saying, “Remember that in The America We Deserve, I wrote that book in 2000, I wrote about Osama bin Laden: ‘We’ve got to take him out,’” Trump said during a Dec. 2 rally for his presidential campaign.

Last night, Trump attacked retired admiral William McRaven for not getting to bin Laden sooner.

“Wouldn’t it have been nice if we got Osama bin Laden a lot sooner than that, wouldn’t it have been nice?” Trump said to Fox News. “You know, living — think of this — living in Pakistan, beautifully in Pakistan, in what I guess they considered a nice mansion, I don’t know, I’ve seen nicer, but living in Pakistan right next to the military academy. Everybody in Pakistan knew he was there.”

[Mediaite]

Trump falsely says NYSE opened day after Sept. 11 attacks to justify holding rally after Pittsburgh shooting

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President Donald Trump falsely claimed Saturday that the New York Stock Exchange re-opened the day after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in an effort to justify holding a rally on the same day that a mass shooting occurred at a synagogue in Pittsburgh.

Speaking at a planned campaign rally in Illinois, Trump said he had weighed whether to cancel his rally as well as a speech at an agricultural convention earlier in the day in Indianapolis, Indiana, but ultimately decided against it, saying such a move would amount to giving the killer an edge. He compared his decision to continue with the rally to reopening the NYSE after the September 11 attacks, something that did not happen.

“And with what happened early today — that horrible, horrible attack in Pittsburgh — I was saying maybe I should cancel both this and that,” Trump said, referring to the rally and his earlier appearance at the agricultural convention. “And then I said to myself, I remember Dick Grasso, a friend of mine, great guy. He headed up the New York Stock Exchange on September 11. And the New York Stock Exchange was open the following day. He said — and what they had to do to open it you wouldn’t believe. We won’t even talk to you about it. But he got that exchange open.”

“We can’t make these sick, demented, evil people important. And when we start changing around our lives and changing around our schedules … we can’t allow people like this to become important,” Trump said. “And when we change all of our lives in order to accommodate them, it’s not acceptable.”

In fact, as CNN reported at the time, the NYSE closed after the attacks and did not reopen until September 17 because many of the workers were lost or injured in the attack on the World Trade Center, which was just blocks from the NYSE in Manhattan’s financial district, and much of the communications and utilities needed to trade stocks were damaged or destroyed.

It was the longest shutdown for the NYSE since the Great Depression.

Bloomberg first reported Trump’s error.

Trump also used his rally to condemn the shooting that took place earlier Saturday at the Tree of Life synagogue, leaving 11 dead.

“This evil anti-Semitic attack is an assault on all of us. It’s an assault on humanity. It will require all of us working together to extract the hateful poison of anti-Semitism from the world,” he said.

“The scourge of anti-Semitism cannot be ignored, cannot be tolerated and cannot be allowed to continue.”

[CNN]

Trump Busted Tweeting Fake 9/11 Tribute After Users Spot Omarosa, Hope Hicks in Photo Taken Months Ago

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President Donald Trump tweeted a photo Tuesday of the White House staff paying tribute to the victims of the 9/11 attacks – but users quickly noticed that the photo was taken months ago when a number of former aides were still on the staff.

“Departing Washington, D.C. to attend a Flight 93 September 11th Memorial Service in Shanksville, Pennsylvania with Melania,” Trump tweeted along with the photo, apparently purporting that the photo was taken Tuesday.

But users quickly spotted two former aides – Omarosa Manigault Newman and Hope Hicks – still on the staff, meaning the photo was taken last year.

The White House did hold a memorial ceremony Tuesday but Trump was nowhere to be seen. He had already skipped town to fly to Pennsylvania.

[Latest]

Trump begins 9/11 anniversary with angry early morning tweet about Russia and Hillary Clinton

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Donald Trump began the 17th anniversary of the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks on the US with an early morning tweet about Russia, law enforcement agencies and Hillary Clinton.

The post, which appeared to be a quote taken from Fox News, sought to perpetuate an argument – often used by supporters of the president – which seeks to shift focus from the investigation into his presidential campaign’s links to Russia on to unfounded speculation around the FBI, Department of Justice (DoJ) and his rival Ms Clinton.

“‘We have found nothing to show collusion between President Trump & Russia, absolutely zero, but every day we get more documentation showing collusion between the FBI & DOJ, the Hillary campaign, foreign spies & Russians, incredible’ @SaraCarterDC @LouDobbs,” Mr Trump wrote.

He followed up four minutes later with another post that retweeted his assistant Dan Scavino, with a picture of him signing an executive order designating “‘Patriot Day 2018’ to honor the memories of the nearly 3,000 lives lost on September 11, 2001”.

The US president included the hashtags #NeverForget and #September11.

Mr Trump next launched a renewed attack on the FBI and the DoJ, which he said were doing “nothing” to look into an alleged “media leak strategy” by two FBI agents investigating links between the Trump campaign and Russia.

“Eric Holder could be running the Justice Department right now and it would be behaving no differently than it is,” Mr Trump continued, quoting one of his favourite Fox News presenters, Lou Dobbs.

Eric Holder is a former Democratic attorney general appointed by former president Barack Obama in 2009.

Mr Trump later tweeted in praise of his lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who was mayor of New York City at the time of the terrorist attacks.

“Rudy Giuliani did a GREAT job as Mayor of NYC during the period of September 11th. His leadership, bravery and skill must never be forgotten,” Mr Trump wrote. “Rudy is a TRUE WARRIOR!”

In 2013, three years before he became president, Mr Trump sparked anger after using the 9/11 anniversary to reference “haters and losers”.

“I would like to extend my best wishes to all, even the haters and losers, on this special date, September 11th,” he posted on Twitter.

It is just one of a litany of questionable comments the US president has made about 9/11.

On the day of the attacks, Mr Trump noted his skyscraper, at 40 Wall Street, went from being the second-tallest in downtown Manhattan to the tallest, following the collapse of the Twin Towers.

In 2015, Mr Trump claimed when talking about Muslims that “thousands of people were cheering” in Jersey City, situated across the Hudson River from lower Manhattan, as the towers fell. There is no evidence of mass celebrations there by Muslims.

Three months later, he said he lost “hundreds of friends” in the attack, but failed to provided any names, other than mentioning knowing a Roman Catholic priest who died while serving as a chaplain to the city fire department.

Despite Mr Trump’s apparent preoccupation into the Russia investigation, on Tuesday he visited a Pennsylvania field that became a 9/11 memorial.

Mr Trump and his wife, Melania, were due participate in a remembrance in Shanksville, where a California-bound commercial airliner crashed after the 40 passengers and crew members learned what was happening and attempted to regain control of the plane. Everyone on board was killed.

Nearly 3,000 people died on 9/11 when other planes were flown into New York’s World Trade Center and the Pentagon in an attack planned by al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden. Nearly a decade later, bin Laden was killed in May 2011 during a US military operation ordered by Mr Obama.

Shortly before he was due to deliver a speech at Shanksville, Mr Trump tweeted: “17 years since September 11th!”

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said of Mr Trump’s visit to Shanksville: “Certainly the focus will be on remembering that horrific day and remembering the lives that were lost, and certainly honouring the individuals who were not only lost that day, but also put their lives of the line to help in that process.”

Mr Trump was in his Trump Tower penthouse — 4 miles from the World Trade Center — during the 2001 attacks.

[The Independent]

Trump Made No 9/11 Donations in Year After Attack, Despite His Promise

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The New York City Comptroller’s Office has found no evidence that Donald Trump donated to 9/11 charities in the months after the attacks, the agency said.

Trump had promised weeks after the 2001 attack to donate $10,000 to the Twin Towers Fund as part of a charity effort by “The Howard Stern Show.”

“My office has reviewed the donations made in the nearly 12 months following the attacks – and we didn’t find evidence that he contributed a single cent to the victims, our first responders, and to our city through the Twin Towers Fund,” New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer, a Democrat, said in a statement to ABC News today.

“In the wake of 9/11, New Yorkers came together, healed, and rebuilt. If Donald Trump claimed to donate and didn’t, if he claimed to support New Yorkers in a time of crisis and refused, then that would be just plain wrong.”

It’s possible that the Republican presidential nominee donated after the two audit periods reviewed by Stringer’s office. The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment.

At the request of multiple news organizations, including the New York Daily News, which first reported the story, Stringer’s office conducted a review of previously sealed records of the Twin Towers Fund and the New York City Public/Private Initiatives Inc., doing business as the Twin Towers Fund, which were set up in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks to raise money to support victims’ families, first responders and first responders’ families.

The New York City Comptroller’s Office confirmed to ABC News that it had manually reviewed about 1,500 pages of donor records, containing the names of more than 110,000 individuals and entities that were collected as part of the audits. The audit of the Twin Towers Fund covered the period from Sept. 12, 2001 to Aug. 31, 2002, while the audit of the New York City Public/Private Initiatives Inc., doing business as the Twin Towers Fund, covered the period Sept. 12, 2001 to June 30, 2002.

Stringer’s office found no record of a donation made by Trump or a Trump entity in the year after the tragedy, contrary to the real estate developer’s claims.

(h/t ABC News)

Giuliani Lies Clinton Didn’t Visit Ground Zero After 9/11

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Former New York City mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani accused Hillary Clinton of failing to honor the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that took down the World Trade Center, incorrectly suggesting at one point that she lied about visiting Ground Zero in the aftermath.

“Don’t tell me, if you said that, that you remember September 11, 2001. I remember September 11, 2001,” Giuliani said during a Donald Trump campaign rally here in Florida. “Yes, you helped to get benefits for the people who were injured one day. But I heard her say she was there that day. I was there that day, I don’t remember seeing Hillary Clinton there.”

While Clinton was not in New York on Sept. 11, she flew there on Sept. 12, in one of the few airplanes allowed to travel after the attacks. Pictures of Giuliani and Clinton inspecting the destruction together are widely available.

Clinton, who was a U.S. senator from New York at the time of 9/11, was in the District that day. The Pentagon was also attacked, and security officials feared the Capitol could also be targeted. Clinton flew to New York with fellow Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) soon after the attacks.

She describes that scene in detail in her book, “Hard Choices,” and refers to the “long sleepless night in Washington” before flying to New York on Sept. 12. She does not appear to have said publicly at any point that she was in New York City on Sept. 11, 2001.

She most recently described her experience in the aftermath of 9/11 during an interview with CNN last month in which she detailed finding out about the attack that day as she was en route to the Capitol.

“There weren’t that many survivors; the ones that did survive were grievously injured. The loss of life was overwhelming,” Clinton told CNN during the interview. “But it was also my job and the job of other officials to get our city and state and country what we needed.”

Earlier this year, Trump praised Clinton’s efforts after the attacks, saying in July she was “enormously supportive and enormously helpful.”

Giuliani has become a regular presence on the campaign trail and is an active TV surrogate for Trump. He said Wednesday that Americans “need a strong man, need an independent man, need a man who tells it straight.

“Sometimes really straight,” he added, laughing. “But boy, a heckofa lot better than being a liar.”

(h/t The Washington Post)

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