Did the U.S. government leave the door open for the 9/11attack, and is it happening again?

In a Twitter (X) space on Thursday night hosted by Chelle, Kat the Hammer, and James R, featured guest Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer discussed his involvement with a secret mission known as “Able Danger.” Able Danger was a classified military effort targeting transnational terrorism.

According to Lt. Col. Shaffer and others, Able Danger had identified two of the three al-Qaeda cells active in the September 11 attacks, which included the 9/11 leader Mohamed Atta along with three other eventual hijackers.

In the X space, Lt. Col. Shaffer asserted that after his team notified Washington about these individuals, they were ordered to stand down. The Colonel suggested that they had found intelligence that they weren’t supposed to find.

An investigation by the Defense Department Inspector General’s office (IG) in September 2006 concluded that “the evidence did not support assertions that Able Danger identified the September 11, 2001, terrorists nearly a year before the attack, that Able Danger team members were prohibited from sharing information with law enforcement authorities, or that DoD officials acted against Shaffer for his disclosures regarding Able Danger.”

Lt. Col. Shaffer called this investigation into question and asserted that the statements from his team to the IG were distorted by investigators in the final IG’s report, and the report omitted essential information that they had provided. In the past, Col. Shaffer has also claimed that the DOD retaliated against him for speaking out publicly about the IG report’s distortions.

When asked about why the U.S. government would ignore intelligence that could prevent a terror attack, Shaffer said you could draw your own conclusions.

He later drew parallels to the current situation at the border and said that the environment in the country at the moment is “similar to the conditions leading up to 9/11.”

Lt. Col. Shaffer was then asked if intelligence agencies had a practice of ignoring potential threats, and whether there was a motive behind it? In response, he reflected on Able Danger and asked the audience to consider why his team was stopped from carrying out actions that could have possibly prevented 9/11. He asked that they “draw their own conclusions.”

In this contentious 2024 election year, it makes you wonder why the southern border remains open and what those charged with keeping us safe might already be ignoring.

You can listen to the recorded space on X here: