9/11 name reader calls on Trump to release 'deep state' files mid-ceremony

Each year during the Sept. 11 remembrances, family members read the names of the nearly 3,000 people killed. And, on the 25th anniversary of the attacks, one of those readings included a demand.

Speaking at Ground Zero, the nephew of Lisa Marie Terry, 42, of Oakland Township, read out his aunt's name to remember her. He then made a demand of President Donald Trump's administration.

"For 25 years, the deep state has hidden the truth about what happened that day 25 years ago," he began. "President Trump, you are our last hope. Release the unredacted files that implicate Saudi Arabia, while what's left of the victims' families are still alive to see it."

The bipartisan 9/11 Commission found that 15 of the 19 hijackers of the planes came from Saudi Arabia. Al-Qaeda leader and 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden was also from Saudi Arabia. However, the commission report found no evidence that the Saudi government institution itself officially funded al-Qaeda.

That hasn't been enough for many family members who want to see classified documents they believe implicate the Saudis in funding the attack.

Judge George B. Daniels of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York ruled in 2025 that families presented credible enough information of Saudi involvement to continue with lawsuits from 9/11 family members against the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

“Most tellingly,” he wrote at the time, “the drawing of an airplane with equations related to the height and distance of a plane’s flight path, for which [Saudi national with links to 9/11 attackers Omar al-Bayoumi] could not come up with any reasonable explanation, facially connects Bayoumi with knowledge of the 9/11 Attacks.”

The Saudi government attempted to get the charges dismissed at the outset and the judge said that it was clear they tried to downplay the information.

"Although Saudi Arabia attempts to offer seemingly innocent explanations or context, they are either self-contradictory or not strong enough to overcome the inference that KSA had employed Bayoumi and [former Saudi diplomat Fahad al-]Thumairy to assist the hijackers," the judge wrote.