Remember the Saudi nationals, including members of the bin Laden family, that the Bush administration flew out of the country after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, while the rest of the nation was still grounded? There’s another Saudi connection you probably haven’t heard about. Two years ago, Anthony Summers and Dan Christensen of BrowardBulldog.org reported how

Just two weeks before the 9/11 hijackers slammed into the Pentagon and World Trade Center, members of a Saudi family abruptly left their luxury home near Sarasota, leaving a brand new car in the driveway, a refrigerator full of food, fruit on the counter — and an open safe in the master bedroom.

In the weeks to follow, law enforcement agents not only discovered the home was visited by vehicles used by the hijackers, but phone calls were linked between the home and those who carried out the death flights — including leader Mohamed Atta — in discoveries never before revealed to the public.

Earlier this month, the two followed up with another report for BrowardBulldog.org, also published in the Miami Herald. No time to fill in all the details (follow the links!), but here are important excerpts:

A senior FBI official has told a Fort Lauderdale federal judge that disclosure of certain classified information about Saudis who hurriedly left their Sarasota area home shortly before the attacks on 9/11 “would reveal current specific targets of the FBI’s national security investigations.”

…The FBI later confirmed the existence of the probe, but said it found no evidence connecting the Ghazzawis or the al-Hijjis to the hijackers or the 9/11 plot.

The newly released FBI records contradict the FBI’s public denials. One report dated April 4, 2002, says the investigation “revealed many connections” between the Saudis who fled Sarasota and “individuals associated with the terrorist attacks on 9/11/2001.”

The report goes on to list three of those individuals and connect them to the Venice, Florida, flight school where suicide hijackers Mohamed Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi trained.

Russ Baker at WhoWhatWhy sums up this report’s importance:

The April 4 document is significant for three reasons: (1) it demonstrates that the authorities are aware of the Saudi link, (2) it demonstrates that the FBI previously lied when it declared that its inquiries in the matter found no links to the terrorists or the plot, (3) it has the FBI asserting that no more disclosures should be made in order to protect “national security.”