Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, former Cantor Fitzgerald CEO, represents hope for family members of some Sept. 11 victims nearly 24 years after the terrorist attacks.
The Trump administration official last week received a letter from more than 100 family members of employees who, while working for the financial services firm, were killed during the attacks, The Wall Street Journal reported.
The families in 2004 filed a lawsuit against Saudi Arabia, where most of the attackers were from.
In their letter, the families asked Lutnick to demand that Saudi Arabia's government "accept responsibility for the actions of their predecessors." They added, "Please help ensure our voices are heard and the truth finally comes out."
Lutnick, a plaintiff in the families' lawsuit against Saudi Arabia, read the letter, according to a Commerce Department spokesman.
"He deeply appreciates their thoughts and concerns," the spokesman said, the Journal reported.
The families are urging President Donald Trump and Lutnick to use new evidence to push the Saudis to extradite Omar al-Bayoumi, a Saudi national, for his alleged role in helping carry out the terrorist attack.
Saudi Arabia, which has denied complicity in the attacks, has filed a motion to dismiss the case.
If a judge decides the lawsuit should proceed on the merits, that could put pressure on Saudi Arabia to provide further information about its alleged role in the Sept. 11 plot. It also could lead to a public trial in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
Although the 2004 9/11 Commission report said there was "no credible evidence" that al-Bayoumi knowingly aided extremist groups, the FBI in 2021 released a memo showing al-Bayoumi had checked into a Culver City, California, hotel a month before the hijackers' arrival, with a man whose phone numbers were indirectly linked to Osama bin Laden.
A pad on which al-Bayoumi had sketched an airplane in blue ink with an aeronautical equation written onto it was among evidence unsealed in federal court last year as part of the lawsuit. There also was a video al-Bayoumi took of the U.S. Capitol building before the attacks.
The New York Times reported in May that families sent Lutnick a letter pressing him to help extradite a Saudi Arabian national potentially involved in the terrorist operation as the secretary prepared to take part in economic talks with the kingdom.
In 2021, on the 20th anniversary of the attacks, Lutnick told Newsmax he had raised more than $180 million for the families of his employees trapped above the fire, "650 beautiful human beings."
Charlie McCarthy ✉
Charlie McCarthy, a writer/editor at Newsmax, has nearly 40 years of experience covering news, sports, and politics.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.