Photo 
 
 The leaders of the independent commission that investigated the 9/11 attacks, former Governor Tom Kean of New Jersey and former Representative Lee Hamilton of Indiana, carried out that highly sensitive task with integrity and rigor. 
 
 Now they are weighing in again as the Obama administration prepares to make public at least some of the 28 pages from a separate, earlier investigation by a congressional panel that examined possible Saudi government involvement in the attacks. The pages have been kept secret since 2002. 
 
 In a statement issued last Friday, Mr. Kean, the commission chairman, and Mr. Hamilton, the vice chairman, effectively delivered this bottom line to Americans: Be cautious in judging the material when it becomes available. 
 
 Former Senator Bob Graham, who was a co-chairman of the separate 2002 joint congressional inquiry into the attacks, has long claimed there is evidence of complicity by institutions and people in Saudi Arabia beyond the 15 Saudi nationals who were among the 19 Al Qaeda terrorists. Such allegations are adding new tensions to an already fraught Saudi-American relationship. 
 
 But Mr. Hamilton and Mr. Kean stress that, unlike their commission, the congressional panel never had a chance to investigate any of the leads contained in the 28 pages. Those pages were based mostly on raw, unvetted material from the F.B.I. and “therefore, are comparable to preliminary law enforcement notes, which are generally covered by grand jury secrecy rules. Those rules exist to avoid implicating people in serious crimes without the benefit of follow-up investigation to determine if such suspicions are substantiated,” they wrote. 
 
 The two men said they consider this point crucial since the attacks were the worst mass murder ever in the United States. “Those responsible deserve the maximum punishment possible. Therefore, accusations of complicity in that mass murder from responsible authorities are a grave matter. Such charges should be levied with care,” they added. 
 
 Their comments do not appear to be an attempt to whitewash any Saudi role. The 9/11 report was critical of Saudi Arabia: It cited the government’s funding of schools and mosques that fanned an extreme form of Islam known as Wahhabism, as well as contributions by some wealthy Saudis to Islamic charities with links to terrorism. 
 
 During its tenure, the commission investigated all leads in the 28 pages and only one Saudi government employee was implicated in the plot, Mr. Kean and Mr. Hamilton said. He was Fahad al Thumairy, who worked as an imam at a mosque in Los Angeles and was employed by the Saudi Ministry of Islamic Affairs. The commission found no evidence that Mr. Thumairy, who returned to Saudi Arabia in 2003, assisted two of the hijackers when they came to Los Angeles in 2000 but “he is still a person of interest,” they wrote. 
 
 When it wrapped up its investigation in 2004, the commission concluded that there was “no evidence that the Saudi government as an institution or senior Saudi officials individually funded” al Qaeda. In 2015, another independent panel created by Congress, the 9/11 Review Commission, found no new evidence against the Saudi government. 
 
 The director of national intelligence, James Clapper, said on Monday that it was realistic to expect the administration to release at least some of the 28 classified pages by June. Whatever emerges must be weighed in the context of the work already done by Mr. Kean and Mr. Hamilton and their team. ||||| The co-chair of a joint congressional investigation that penned a report at the center of the unfolding controversy over Saudi Arabia’s suspected connection to the 9/11 attacks revealed Sunday he felt that “all the evidence points to” the shadowy kingdom having aided the terrorists responsible for the devastating act that killed nearly 3,000 people. 
 
 “To me, the most important unanswered question of 9/11 is did these 19 (hijackers) conduct this very sophisticated plot alone, or were they supported? I think it’s implausible to think that people who couldn’t speak English, had never been in the United States before, as a group were not well-educated could have done that,” former U.S. Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla.), who helped author the 2002 report based on a joint House and Senate Intelligence Committee probe into the attacks, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” 
 
 “So who was the most likely entity to have provided them that support?” Graham continued. “All the evidence points to Saudi Arabia. We know that Saudi Arabia started Al Qaeda. It was a creation of Saudi Arabia.” 
 
 Former Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla.) is co-chair of a joint congressional investigation into Saudi Arabia’s suspected connection to the 9/11 attacks. (Tom Williams/AP) 
 
 Graham’s report, which comprised 850 pages, contained a 28-page section — which remains classified — that many have speculated contains damning information connecting the 9/11 hijackers, 15 of 19 whom were Saudi citizens, to the Saudi government. 
 
 PRESIDENT OBAMA MEETS WITH SAUDI ARABIA'S KING SALMAN 
 
 But when asked whether he felt the still-classified documents would reveal a connection between the attackers and the Saudi government, or simply “wealthy individuals who happen to be Saudi,” Graham demurred. 
 
 “That is a very murky line. Saudi Arabia has made it murky by its own legal action. Whenever a U.S. group sues a Saudi Arabian entity, whether it’s a bank, a foundation, a charity, immediately, the defense of sovereign immunity is raised,” Graham said. “The Saudis don’t recognize the difference between a royal decision and a societal decision in the same way that other countries might. So I think it covers a broad range, from the highest ranks of the kingdom through these, what would be private entities.” 
 
 The former lawmaker has repeatedly pressed for the declassification of those pages — a call echoed in recent months by the families of 9/11 victims and a request being considered by President Obama. 
 
 The front page of the New York Daily News for April 17 about Saudi Arabia's King Salman’s threat to sell off up to $750 billion of his country's U.S. assets. (New York Daily News) 
 
 Opponents of releasing the documents have argued that their revelations could irreparably harm relations between the two traditionally allied nations — a possibility Graham wouldn’t deny. 
 
 When asked what the potential damage of the papers’ release would be to the U.S.-Saudi relationship “on a scale of one to ten,” Graham, who left Capitol Hill in 2005, replied bluntly and specifically: “7.838.” 
 
 “So you think it will have a high level negative impact,” host Chuck Todd replied. 
 
 “Yes,” Graham said. 
 
 The documents were originally classified by the George W. Bush White House, but even one former administration official suggested Sunday that the U.S. should “just make all 28 pages public.” 
 
 OBAMA, KING SALMAN COMPLETELY AVOID DISCUSSING 9/11 BILL DURING MEETING 
 
 John Bolton, Bush’s Ambassador to the U.N. from 2005-2006, said the Saudi Arabian government has agreed to make pages with suspected damning information public. (Rainier Ehrhardt/AP) 
 
 “Let’s see what’s in there and then we can talk about it,” John Bolton, Bush’s Ambassador to the U.N. from 2005-2006 said on “The Cats Roundtable” on AM 970. 
 
 “I think it’s important to note that the Saudi government itself has said for 10 or 12 years now that they agree to make the pages public, so I don’t know what the Obama administration’s hold-up is. I think the sooner we get them out and let the American public see them, the better off we’ll be,” he said. 
 
 The White House said last week that Obama has asked for a declassification review of the 28 pages but that a decision was in the hands of the Department of National Intelligence. 
 
 The front page of the New York Daily News for April 21 shows President Obama visiting King Salman — and avoiding the 9/11 topic. (New York Daily News) 
 
 But in a press conference with reporters last week deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes also suggested in thinly veiled language that the White House believed the still-classified documents don’t contain anything damning. 
 
 EXPLAINER: SAUDI ARABIA'S INVOLVEMENT IN THE 9/11 ATTACKS 
 
 The ongoing discussion over the documents comes as Congress is considering a controversial proposed bill that would allow the families of 9/11 victims the right to sue the Saudi government for any role it may have played in the terror attacks. 
 
 The Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, which passed the Senate Judiciary Committee earlier this year, would take away immunity from foreign governments in cases “arising from a terrorist attack that kills an American on American soil.” 
 
 The Saudi Arabian government has threatened to sell $750 billion in Treasury securities and other assets in the United States should the U.S. Congress pass the legislation. 
 
 Obama — who sat down with Saudi King Salman last week during an ill-timed 24-hour trip to the kingdom but completely avoided discussing the bill — has opposed the bill, prompting anger among the kin of those who died in the horrific terror act. 
 
 Sign up for BREAKING NEWS Emails privacy policy Thanks for subscribing!
– A member of the official commission that investigated the 9/11 attacks is ratcheting up pressure on the White House to make public 28 pages of a congressional report dealing with suspected Saudi involvement. In an interview with the Guardian, former Navy secretary John Lehman lays it out in blunt terms: “There was an awful lot of participation by Saudi individuals in supporting the hijackers, and some of those people worked in the Saudi government,” he says. “Our report should never have been read as an exoneration of Saudi Arabia.” Lehman adds that he's not implicating members of the Saudi royal family or top civilian officials, but rather lower-echelon employees, perhaps in the Saudi ministry of Islamic affairs. Last month, the leaders of the commission—former GOP Gov. Tom Kean of New Jersey and former Democratic congressman Lee Hamilton of Indiana—cautioned against releasing the 28 pages and noted that just one Saudi official had been implicated in the plot. (That was diplomat Fahad al-Thumairy, who was deported and remains a "person of interest," notes the New York Times.) But Lehman says he knows of at least five other Saudi employees who were under suspicion. “They may not have been indicted, but they were certainly implicated,” he says. “There was an awful lot of circumstantial evidence.”