The Central Intelligence Agency declassified and released 71 President’s Daily Brief (PDB) products on Friday, Sept. 11, 2026. The documents, made public on the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, provide a record of intelligence analysis concerning al-Qaida and Usama Bin Ladin from the years leading up to the attacks through the day after they occurred. CIA Director John Ratcliffe stated the release was consistent with a transparency initiative by President Donald Trump.
The PDB is a highly classified intelligence publication prepared for the nation's most senior leaders. According to the CIA, this collection represents the agency’s largest single release of declassified PDB products related to 9/11. The documents include more than 100 pages of analysis that had not previously been available to the public, tracing the evolving understanding of Bin Ladin’s plotting despite what the agency described as sparse, vague, and imperfect information.
The released documents date back as far as February 1998, with a briefing for then-President Bill Clinton titled "Terrorists seeking WMD capability" that mentions Bin Ladin. A briefing from weeks before the 2001 attacks describes al-Qaida’s "flexible operational decision making" and its ability to adjust plans to changing conditions. A report from Sept. 12, 2001, cited a source indicating the attacks had been planned for two years and had also targeted the U.S. Capitol.
The declassification provides previously unavailable details on what the U.S. government knew about al-Qaida's capabilities and intentions. While much of this history was explored during the 9/11 Commission’s investigation between 2002 and 2004, these 71 documents—totaling over 100 pages—allow the public to see the specific, day-to-day intelligence warnings provided to the Clinton and Bush administrations. The National Archives also released a separate batch of documents on Friday, including interviews with officials from the Clinton and Bush administrations.
The CIA stated that the release honors the memory of those lost and the officers who served in the subsequent Global War on Terror. The documents are currently available through the CIA’s public records.