By John Cassidy
On Sunday, (click here) the families of some 9/11 victims sent a letter to Donald Trump about his decision to host a professional golf tournament sponsored by the Saudi government next week at his golf course in Bedminster, New Jersey (click here). “It is incomprehensible to us that a former president of the United States would cast our loved ones aside for personal financial gain,” they wrote. “We hope you will reconsider your business relationship with the Saudi golf league and will agree to meet with us.”
The group of families, which calls itself 9/11 Justice, has been pressing a lawsuit for years that claims the Saudi government was complicit in the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. During the 2016 campaign, Trump himself suggested that Saudi Arabia was responsible for 9/11, the families reminded him. Trump didn’t reply to their letter immediately, which wasn’t surprising given the financial ties that he and his family have established with the Saudis. In 2018, as President, he protected Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, widely known as M.B.S., after Saudi agents brutally murdered and dismembered the Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. (“I saved his ass,” Trump subsequently boasted to Bob Woodward.)...
