Nice to see Bush getting peppered with Saudi questions at his press conference with Sharon today. He gave two explanations for the redacted 28 pages: 1) Protecting an ongoing investigation and not wanting the subjects of the investigation to know what we know about them. This doesn’t sound very persuasive (although it’s hard to judge from afar), given that Omar al-Bayoumi, the suspected Saudi agent who helped 9/11 hijackers in San Diego, already knows he’s under investigation; 2) Protecting sources and methods. This seems just to be nonsense, at least according to Sen. Shelby who says there is no security reason for keeping 95 percent of the redacted material under wraps.

Fortunately, Congress will soon make its presence felt in a big way on the question of the Saudi relationship to terror. The Senate Governmental Affairs committee plans a hearing on Thursday. I’m told this is a hearing the FBI very much did not want to happen. It will deal with the redaction in the joint inquiry report, and follow-up on the joint inquiry’s findings of Saudi non-cooperation in the U.S. fight against terror. Of particular interest will be the committee’s look at two meetings near the end of the Clinton administration when Clinton officials threatened sanctions against the Kingdom if it didn’t change its “reckless indifference” to the way Saudi money and other support was funneled to terrorists. The Saudis rebuffed the pleas, but were never felt any consequences. I’m told the head of the U.S. delegation of these meetings will testify, and report how every attempt by the Treasury to crack-down on Saudi money-flows was rebuffed by the State Department.