On the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the Central Intelligence Agency declassified 71 President’s Daily Brief (PDB) products related to al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden — what the Agency called its single largest release of CIA PDB analysis tied to 9/11.

CIA Director John Ratcliffe said the dump was timed to the anniversary and to President Donald Trump’s transparency push. “In an act of exceptional transparency, we honor the memory of those we lost on that tragic Tuesday by releasing 71 declassified products—the single largest release of CIA analysis related to 9/11 ever,” Ratcliffe said in the Agency’s Sept. 11 statement. The collection, the CIA said, covers “the years before and the day after” the attacks and puts more than 100 pages of previously withheld analysis into public view for the first time.

To commemorate the 25th anniversary of 9/11, CIA released 71 President's Daily Briefs to give Americans a glimpse into our most sensitive intelligence from the years before and day after one of our Nation's darkest moments.

https://t.co/Z2QIjcuvAj pic.x.com/N8ZoZ2OvtZ— CIA (@CIA) September 11, 2026

The Agency’s public index lists individual PDFs dated from February 1998 through Sept. 12, 2001 — spanning the Clinton and early Bush administrations that received the PDB. Among them is the already famous Aug. 6, 2001 item, “Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US,” and a Sept. 10, 1998 memo titled “Bin Ladin’s Location and Intentions.”

That 1998 memo is not subtle once you read the unredacted lines. After noting intelligence still lacked conclusive detail on future attack plans, the second page states bin Laden’s “preferred option is to strike the US on its own soil in Washington,” and that the same network behind the Africa embassy bombings “may fly an explosive-packed airplane into a US city.” The Wall Street Journal, updating its reporting Friday, wrote that the warning went to senior Clinton officials with PDB access almost exactly three years before 9/11 — and that the memo offered no conclusive how-or-where while flagging Washington as a focus. The New York Times likewise reported the CIA release of intelligence sent to the Clinton and Bush administrations on al Qaeda before the attacks.

Ratcliffe framed the release as accountability, not nostalgia. “Americans can now see for themselves the intelligence leading up to this tragic day for our Nation,” he posted. The documents still carry heavy black bars — sources, methods, and whole clauses remain locked — but the through-line the Agency itself highlights is plain: analysts were tracking bin Laden’s intent to hit Americans for years, with imperfect information, while the public was left to wait a quarter-century for the paper trail.

Today's release of 71 PDB products related to 9/11 is an act of exceptional transparency and accountability. Americans can now see for themselves the intelligence leading up to this tragic day for our Nation. https://t.co/qi8yB4LyaS— John Ratcliffe (@DCIARatcliffe) September 11, 2026

Twenty-five years on, the classification system still decides how much of that history Americans get to read. Friday’s dump is a rare crack in that wall — and a reminder that “we didn’t know” and “you weren’t allowed to see the file” are not the same sentence.

Sources