Hardball - Transcript

MSNBC
SHOW: HARDBALL 21:00

September 8, 2004 Wednesday

TRANSCRIPT: # 090801cb.461

HEADLINE: HARDBALL for September 8, 2004

BYLINE: Chris Matthews; Barry McCaffrey

GUESTS: Bob Graham; Wayne LaPierre; William Bratton; Glenn Smith; Joe Barton; Lois Romano; Roger Simon; Tony Blankley

HIGHLIGHT:
Vice President Dick Cheney says in a campaign stop that if Americans don't vote for his administration, more terrorist attacks are likely. A new book by retiring Florida Senator Bob Graham says the Saudi Arabia government assisted at least some of the 9/11 terrorists. The assault weapons ban is set to expire on Monday, and Congress seems ready to let it lapse.

MATTHEWS: Welcome back to HARDBALL. As Congress races to pass legislation that would reform the U.S. intelligence community, Democratic senator Bob Graham, who chaired the Senate Intelligence Committee, has written a new book entitled, "Intelligence Matters: The CIA, the FBI, Saudi Arabia, and the Failure of America's War on Terror." In the book, he accuses the Bush administration of covering up evidence that might have connected the Saudi government to some of the 9/11 hijackers.

Well, Senator, I don't want you to give it all away, but I'd like you to give us a nice tease. Let's talk about the FBI and the role it played in possibly covering up what they knew about these hijackers before 9/11.

SEN. BOB GRAHAM (D), FLORIDA: Well, let me give you one specific example, Chris. One of the key figures in 9/11 was a retired university professor who had been employed by the FBI to-as an informant, particularly to watch after college-age Saudis who were in San Diego. As irony would have it, this man also took in boarders. And guess who one of his boarders was? One of the...

MATTHEWS: A couple of the hijackers.

GRAHAM: Well, it actually-one had already left to go back to recruit the musclemen. The other one stayed in Dan Diego and ended up being a boarder of an FBI informant. I think that's a very suspicious...

MATTHEWS: How deep can you get into...

GRAHAM: ... set of circumstances.

MATTHEWS: ... that?

GRAHAM: Well, I'm about to go on. So we said, We want to interview this guy. We think he's a key witness, may have some very valuable information. The FBI wouldn't let our staff interview him. They wouldn't let us interview him at a closed session of the committee. The only subpoena that we issued during our investigation was on that person, and the FBI, who at that point had him in protective custody, being the only one who could deliver the subpoena, refused to do so.

MATTHEWS: So what's your point? What have you learned that...

GRAHAM: Well, my point is this. Two months after all of the chain of events I've just described, we got a letter from the FBI explaining why they had been so reticent. You know what they said? Because the administration told us not to make this man available for either a staff interview and not to deliver any subpoena on him.

MATTHEWS: Well, how far-with your authority, Senator, couldn't you have found out why the FBI was keeping this thing under wraps?

GRAHAM: Because the administration told them to do it, that's why.

MATTHEWS: Who's the administration?

GRAHAM: The White House. The Oval Office.

MATTHEWS: Why?

GRAHAM: I think because they didn't want this person's testimony because it would have been very embarrassing to have a paid informant have a terrorist live with him...

MATTHEWS: Well, do you think the guy blew it? He didn't know what was going on? He was unaware that these guys were planning the attack?

GRAHAM: Well...

MATTHEWS: Or do you think he was working with them or what?

GRAHAM: The answer is, here's a person who is a retired university professor, so he's not an unintelligent person. How could you live with somebody for four months and not pick up some information about, Why did you come from Saudi Arabia to Dan Diego? What are you doing? How do you spend your time? And none of that information was made available.

MATTHEWS: But husbands-I mean, wives live with husbands all the time who are cheating on them.

GRAHAM: But they don't get paid...

MATTHEWS: They don't find out what's going on.

GRAHAM: Yes, but they don't get generally get paid by somebody precisely to find out.

MATTHEWS: Yes, but they're-well, they get (UNINTELLIGIBLE) in other ways. I want to ask you...

GRAHAM: I'm very suspicious of...

MATTHEWS: ... what's your premise here? What's the premise of this suspicion?

GRAHAM: My...

MATTHEWS: Do you think that the United States government somehow was involved in the attack us on?

GRAHAM: I think the United States government has made a decision, at least this administration of George W. Bush has made a decision that it is more important to protect Saudi Arabia and its involvement in 9/11 than it is to let the American people know-

MATTHEWS: OK, in plain terms. Saudi Arabian government?

GRAHAM: Yes.

MATTHEWS: How so?

GRAHAM: Well...

MATTHEWS: What evidence do you have that...

GRAHAM: Can I just-can I give you another example?

MATTHEWS: No, give me an example, any example...

GRAHAM: OK, I'm going to...

MATTHEWS: ... any example, because you haven't yet, of the Saudi Arabian government having a hand in 9/11.

GRAHAM: All right. I'll give you one. There's-there was a fellow in San Diego named al Bayouni. He had spent most of his life working for the Saudi government. Then he took a job with a subcontractor...

MATTHEWS: Right.

GRAHAM: ... of the Saudi Arabia civil aviation authority.

MATTHEWS: Right.

GRAHAM: He got paid about $40,000 a year. You know what? He never showed up for a job. It was a ghost job. He was a Saudi agent, so described by the FBI and the CIA...

MATTHEWS: OK--

GRAHAM: ... and his job was to look after Saudis, particularly students in the San Diego area. But now, not for the United States...

MATTHEWS: Potential troublemakers, or just friends of the government?

GRAHAM: People who might be plotting some overthrow of the Saudi government. This fellow goes up to Los Angeles, spends an hour with a consular office in-of the Saudi government. The officer subsequently was deported for terrorist activities.

MATTHEWS: Right.

GRAHAM: He has what has been described as a chance meeting at one of the 134 Middle Eastern restaurants in Los Angeles, and just happens to be sitting across the table from the two terrorists. He then invites the terrorists to come to San Diego. Now, I want to be clear. I'm not saying that he knew they were terrorists, but I think he was under instructions to provide them with support and assistance, and he certainly did.

MATTHEWS: As Saudis or as terrorists?

GRAHAM: The Saudi government...

MATTHEWS: Was looking out for everybody.

GRAHAM: ... was looking out for these people...

MATTHEWS: Right.

GRAHAM: ... and I suspect that they were doing it...

MATTHEWS: OK. But you haven't been able to nail down a Saudi Arabian government role in 9/11, have you, Senator?

GRAHAM: I think we have, yes.

MATTHEWS: What have you nailed down?

GRAHAM: We've nailed down that a person who was an agent of the Saudi government provided a substantial amount of assistance to two of the terrorists. He may not have known that they were terrorists, but he provided...

MATTHEWS: But this...

(CROSSTALK)

GRAHAM: ... direction. And a CIA agent in August of 2002 submitted a report to the effect that there was incontrovertible evidence that a Saudi agent was assisting the terrorists.

MATTHEWS: Do you believe, could you swear now that the Saudi Arabian government participated in 9/11, Senator?

GRAHAM: I would be prepared to do that.

MATTHEWS: The Saudi Arabian government-Prince Bandar, the whole crowd, the crown prince, everybody.

GRAHAM: The Saudi civil aviation authority, which was no doubt the source of funds for this agent's...

MATTHEWS: OK.

GRAHAM: ... basic support, then those funds were doubled during the period...

MATTHEWS: Yes. Yes, I read that.

GRAHAM: ... that the terrorists were...

MATTHEWS: In your book, yes.

GRAHAM: ... in San Diego.

GRAHAM: Well, lots in your book. Thank you very much, Senator Bob Graham. Thank you very much.