Leading up to today’s release of the redacted 28 pages from the Intelligence Committee Report on the 9/11 Attack, national security officials have beat out a steady drumbeat proclaiming  “conspiracy theorists” would be  sorely disappointed by the “inconclusive evidence” long-rumored to implicate Saudi Arabian government officials in the 9/11 attack.

Nothing, as it happens, could be further from the truth.

And no bigger Big Lie in recent memory has issued from the mouth of an official representative of the U. S. Government as that which White House press secretary Josh Earnest uttered today.

“The release doesn’t shed any new light or change any of the conclusions about responsibilities for the 9/11 attacks,” Earnest dissembled.

“It should put to rest longtime speculation that the Saudi government had a role.”

Were that in any way true, the pages would not have been slipped out the door late on a Friday afternoon. And certainly not in the middle of summer, days before the two parties begin holding their conventions.

Whistling past the graveyard has long part part of any White House press secretary’s role. But Earnest’s performance today—given the tremendous loss of life America suffered that fateful day—seems particularly shameless.

In a better world: “Me & Tony go on trial together”

In fact, the inescapable conclusion from a first reading of the pages is that to get the kid glove treatment they were afforded at every step of the way, the Saudis must have passed out billions of dollars—that’s billions with a ‘b’—in baksheesh, or bribes, up to and including the President of the United States of America, who obligingly classified the 28 pages.

The reputations of both former President George W Bush and Prince Bandar bin Sultan of Saudi Arabia were irrevocably shredded today, and now lie in tatters.

No wonder Bush refused to give testimony alone, or under oath, to the 9/11 Commission. He might have been forced to plead the Fifth.

In fact, in a better word than this, The United Kingdom’s embattled Tony Blair might soon have some company in the dock.

Read the 28 redacted pages here: declasspart4

Then see our full story tomorrow morning.