How Broward Bulldog's Dan Christensen Broke a 9/11 Conspiracy That's Actually True

[Recursion]

Source: Broward Palm Beach New Times

Dan Christensen lost his job in the Miami Herald's Broward bureau in 2009, a casualty of rampant cost-cutting in daily journalism. Rather than throw in the towel, Christensen started his own local news site, Broward Bulldog, and vowed to continue breaking stories. "This website was the only way to do it," he says.

Now Broward Bulldog is getting some national attention. On Thursday, three days before the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, Christensen broke a story that had been unreported until then: A family living in a gated community near Sarasota abruptly abandoned their home (and brand-new cars and full refrigerator) just two weeks before the planes hit the towers.

...

Christensen doesn't divulge exactly how he confirmed the scoop but says it came from "just old-fashioned shoe-leather reporting." He says that the Justice Department initially recommended that he file a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, but that would have taken way too much time. So he made some calls.

Christensen and Summers also met with Graham at Miami International Airport two Sundays ago, and had a three- to four-hour conversation with him to tell him what they had found.

Read more: http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pulp/2011/09/broward_bulldog_september_11_sarasota_dan_christensen.php

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Interesting backstory on the old-fashioned reporting behind this scoop

[SpiralHawk]

1. "Z-z-z-z-z-z-z. Move along." - Corporate Media Borg (R)

[asjr]

2. I remember reading something similar

to this days after 9/11. It seems some members of the bin Laden family were in the US and were flown out immediately after. I realize this could all have been made up but these days I discount nothing.

[Recursion]

4. That's a separate story

This was a family that bolted a couple of weeks before, after receiving visits from some of the to-be hijackers.

[asjr]

10. Thanks. These stories seem to

pop up now more than before.

[starroute]

12. The "immediately after" part is false -- much of the rest is true

According to snopes (http://www.snopes.com/rumors/flights.asp), the 9/11 Commission reported that there were no flights prior to the reopening of national airspace on September 13 and the FBI did screen those Saudis who departed on chartered flights between September 14-24 and was satisfied that none of them was linked to the attack. One particular flight, on September 20, carried 26 passengers, most of whom were bin Laden family members and who were interviewed particularly closely by the FBI.

The oddest incident involved three young Saudis who were brought to the Tampa, Florida airport by police on September 13, flown to Lexington, Kentucky on a chartered plane shortly after the airport reopened on September 14, met there by local police, and taken to join their relatives in a hotel. For unknown reasons, the government denied for years that this had occurred, finally acknowledging it in 2004 at the request of the 9/11 Commmission. (http://www.sptimes.com/2004/06/09/Tampabay/TIA_now_verifies_flig.shtml)

So what actually happened is not quite as extreme as the stories that float around the net and does not appear to support claims of a coverup -- but it does suggest a particular solicitousness towards the Saudis, directed from the highest levels of government, and a great desire to help them get out of the country even before the resumption of ordinary commercial flights.

(From my own experience, as somebody with a son who had to get back to college that week, I was able to put him on a flight out of Newark on September 15, which was as early as tickets became available. And yes, we could see a column of smoke still rising from lower Manhattan as we drove across Jersey.)

[leveymg]

3. This part of the story is new: DOJ claimed it turned everything over to the 9/11 Joint Inquiry

That was the 2002 Congressional investigation, co-chaired by Sen. Graham. Somebody's not telling the truth here:

They published the story last Thursday, just after midnight. The following day -- the last business day before the much-heralded tenth anniversary -- Christensen says he called the Department of Justice for comment on why no information on the Sarasota connection had been disclosed. It had no comment.

Then, just after 7 p.m. Friday, the DOJ released a statement. "They acknowledged the existence of the investigation but said they didn't find any links to the 9/11 plot and said they had turned over everything to the <9/11 investigation> committee," says Christensen.

When the reporters called Graham with that response, the senator was livid. "It's total B.S.," he told them.

Also, please see related: http://journals.democraticunderground.com/leveymg/596

[Recursion]

5. That's why Graham is so livid

He was directly and specifically lied to by Mueller about this, and apparently he wants somebody's head over this.

[leveymg]

6. Too bad he's not Chair of the Senate Intel Committee, anymore.

But, Mueller's still there, with Obama's blessings.

In terms of Counter-terrorism policy and personnel, there's more continuity than anything else.

[dmw]

7. This was out in 2003 but in Canada

This was reported in 2003 on cbc check the link http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/conspiracytheories/saudi.html

[hootinholler]

13. I didn't find this story at that link

Could you help me out? I'm very interested in knowing that.

[Fokker Trip]

8. No say it ain't so..

You mean the official conspiracy theory has holes in it?

You mean that all those people who defend the official conspiracy theory will have to allow for questioning and rethinking of said theory?

Oh Noes...I can hear the heads exploding now. So inconvenient when new info disrupts the supposedly settled narrative

Cue the official DU Bush story defence brigade(TM).

[gratuitous]

9. Oh, "old-fashioned shoe-leather reporting"

So, it wasn't on Drudge? Well, the major media can safely ignore it then. They don't run "reporting" anymore. I mean, you can find out all kinds of things if you want to waste a lot of time going around asking questions. But that doesn't get you invited to swell cocktail parties in DC. And if you're not there, you're not anywhere.

[Gregorian]

11. News IS good news.

Excellent.