Science & Environment
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says he ‘won’t take sides’…
Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. posted on social media Friday that it’s “hard to tell what is a conspiracy theory and what isn’t” when it comes to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
“As President I won’t take sides on 9/11 or any of the other debates. But I can promise is that I will open the files and usher in a new era of transparency,” Kennedy said in a post on X. He followed that post a short time later with another saying that he was referring to an almost two-week old segment on CBS’s “60 Minutes” about possible Saudi involvement in the 2001 terror attacks on the United States.
The segment, Kennedy wrote, was “sparking all kinds of speculation on X.”
In a third post about an hour later, he wrote “speculation about what our government may be covering up is rife outside the mainstream of our political culture” and the way to restore trust “is through honesty and transparency. That is my promise, and that is what will resolve any questions about 9/11, [unidentified aerial phenomena] and other contentious topics. I am personally agnostic on those issues.”
Kennedy’s campaign did not comment on the “sides” he was referring to in his tweet, or what other “debates” he was referring to, beyond pointing to his post on the “60 Minutes” report.
The U.S. government has said Al Qaeda and its leader Osama bin Laden were behind the attacks. The 9/11 Commission said in its report that it didn’t find evidence that Saudi leaders were complicit, but did find Saudi nationals played key roles in funding Al Qaeda.
A group of 9/11 families have sued the Saudi government over the the deadliest terror attack in U.S. history. Fifteen of the 19 terrorists involved in the attack were Saudi citizens, and bin Laden was born there. The Saudi government has denied any involvement.
The “60 Minutes” report focused on a recently unsealed video of a Saudi intelligence officer filming the U.S. Capitol in 1999.
Kennedy, who has spread anti-vaccine conspiracy theories for years, has previously leaned into more controversial 9/11 conspiracy theories while maintaining he has no position on them.
“There’s strange things that happened on 9/11,” he told author Peter Bergen’s “In the Room” podcast in September of last year. “I don’t know what happened on 9/11. I mean, I understand what the official explanation is, I understand that there is dissent. I have not looked into it. I haven’t examined it. I’m not a good person to talk to about it,” Kennedy said, according to an account of the interview in The Guardian.
Kennedy then pointed to a building that had suffered damage in the attack and later collapsed after uncontrolled fires, suggesting it was mysterious. The collapse has been frequently cited by conspiracy theorists who claim it was a controlled demolition or some kind of inside job.
“I mean, listen, I don’t want to argue any theories about this because all I’ve heard is questions. I have no explanation. I have no knowledge of it,” Kennedy said of the collapse, which he’d referred to as “strange.”
Kennedy, who has also blamed the CIA for killing his father and uncle, previously appeared as a guest on conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ ‘Infowars’ show. His running mate, Nicole Shanahan, is also a vaccine skeptic, and praised Kennedy in a Newsweek interview for taking “vaccine injuries seriously.”
Kennedy isn’t the only 2024 presidential candidate to have suggested the events of 9/11 are still unknown.
In 2022, former President Donald Trump cast doubt on any connection between Saudi Arabia and the 9/11 terrorist attacks when he defended hosting a Saudi-funded tournament at his golf course in Bedminster, New Jersey.
“Well, nobody’s gotten to the bottom of 9/11, unfortunately, and they should have,” Trump said at the time.
A year later, former Republican candidate Vivek Ramaswamy told The Atlantic, “I want the truth about 9/11.”
“I think it is legitimate to say how many police, how many federal agents, were on the planes that hit the Twin Towers. Maybe the answer is zero. It probably is zero for all I know, right? I have no reason to think it was anything other than zero. But if we’re doing a comprehensive assessment of what happened on 9/11, we have a 9/11 commission, absolutely that should be an answer the public knows the answer to,” Ramaswamy said then.
He endorsed Trump after dropping out of the 2024 race.
Rebecca Shabad contributed.
