Both Clinton and Bush received repeated pre-9/11 warnings that bin Laden planned U.S. attacks.
The Trump administration released a cache of formerly classified Presidential Daily Brief material on Friday, coinciding with the nation’s 25th commemoration of the September 11 attacks. The newly public records place fresh scrutiny on two former presidents and what their administrations knew, and when they knew it.
A December 4, 1998, briefing prepared for President Bill Clinton carried a title that left little to interpretation. It read: “Bin Ladin Preparing To Hijack US Aircraft.” The document stated that some members of the bin Laden network had received hijack training, and that bin Laden could be weighing additional operations targeting American aircraft.
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That same briefing went further. It noted that two members of an operational team had evaded security checks during a trial run at an unidentified New York airport, and that bin Laden might move before the start of Ramadan on December 20 of that year.
As originally reported, a separate Clinton-era briefing dated September 10, 1998, warned that bin Laden’s preferred target was American soil, specifically Washington. It described a scenario in which the same group responsible for the U.S. Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania might fly an explosive-laden plane into a U.S. city.
Not every intelligence report was treated as solid. A July briefing that same year acknowledged receiving four reports from what it described as highly questionable sources, suggesting bin Laden was planning a domestic attack.
By February 2000, intelligence officials had moved beyond vague warnings. Analysts were identifying possible symbolic targets inside the United States, including the Statue of Liberty.
The warnings did not stop when George W. Bush took office. Among the declassified material is the now-notorious August 2001 briefing, which had already become a central focus of post-9/11 investigations. Its title: “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US.”
That document stated that Al-Qaeda members, including some holding U.S. citizenship, had lived in or traveled through the country for years. It described a support structure capable of facilitating attacks. It also noted that after U.S. missile strikes on bin Laden’s Afghan base in 1998, he had told followers he wanted to retaliate in Washington.
Perhaps most striking, the briefing referenced FBI findings of suspicious activity on American soil consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including surveillance of federal buildings in New York.
Taken together, the documents paint a picture of repeated, specific, and sometimes detailed warnings across two administrations in the years and months before September 11. The release puts both Clinton and Bush back at the center of a debate that has never fully gone away, about what was known, what was done, and whether more could have been.
