WASHINGTON — The Interagency Security Classification Appeals Panel has declassified the 9/11 Commission’s summary of the President’s Daily Briefs that preceded the September 11 attacks, along with 11 Commission interview memos with senior Clinton and Bush administration national security officials. The National Archives released the records Sept. 11, the 25th anniversary of the attacks.
The panel, known as ISCAP, is a presidential body that decides appeals of classification decisions across the executive branch. Its members include senior officials from the National Security Council, the Department of Justice, the Department of War, the National Archives, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Department of State and the CIA.
The PDB summary
The first record is a 17-page memo dated Feb. 9, 2004, from the Commission’s PDB Review Team. The team reviewed every PDB article from 1998 through Sept. 20, 2001, that touched on al-Qaida, Osama bin Laden or Afghanistan, or on terrorism issues involving Pakistan, Saudi Arabia or Sudan. It counted 353 such articles.
The memo first summarizes a “core group” of 24 articles that discussed possible terrorist attacks in the United States or al-Qaida’s use of aircraft. According to the memo, that core group was provided to a four-person review team that included the Commission’s chair and vice chair. A broader summary of the remaining articles was available only to a two-person subcommittee.
The memo also compares the PDB with the wider-circulation intelligence digests of the period. In the Clinton administration, 55 of 255 relevant PDB articles overlapped wholly or substantially with those digests. In the Bush administration before Sept. 11, 41 of 50 overlapped.
The declassification resolves two ISCAP appeals, 2022-008 and 2023-001. The Public Interest Declassification Board filed the 2022 appeal, according to the Board. The document is a presidential record held at the George W. Bush Presidential Library. Its declassification marking is dated Sept. 8, 2026.
The interview memos
The second set comprises 11 Memoranda for the Record of 9/11 Commission interviews, dated between December 2003 and March 2004. They cover former national security advisers Samuel Berger and Condoleezza Rice; Richard Clarke, the National Security Council’s counterterrorism coordinator, in three memos; Michael Scheuer, chief of the CIA’s bin Laden unit, in three memos; and former Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet, in three memos. ISCAP reviewed them alongside the PDB summary. A redacted memo of the Commission’s interview with President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney was released in 2022.
What remains classified
Both sets carry redactions. According to ISCAP, the withheld material protects intelligence sources and methods, weapons technology, military war plans, the security of the president, vice president and other protectees, and vulnerabilities in current national security emergency plans. The panel applied 25X exemption codes under Executive Order 13526, which allow that information to stay classified for up to another 25 years.
How the release happened
The Public Interest Declassification Board, an advisory panel on declassification policy, wrote to President Trump on June 30, 2026, recommending the release of both record sets. The National Security Council then directed ISCAP to review them, according to the Board. The Board said additional 9/11 records still warrant review and offered to help draft an executive order for a government-wide review.
The release is separate from the CIA’s own Sept. 11 release of 9/11-related President’s Daily Brief material, which the Board said informed the Commission’s summary.
Sources
- 9/11 Commission PDB Review Team, “Report on Review of PDB Articles,” Feb. 9, 2004, declassified under ISCAP Appeal Nos. 2022-008 & 2023-001 (PDF)
- ISCAP, 2026-201: 9-11 Commission Memoranda for the Record, 11 documents (release page)
- Information Security Oversight Office, “ISCAP Declassification of Records Relating to 9/11, Including a Ruling on ISCAP Appeals 2022-008 and 2023-001,” Sept. 11, 2026 (announcement)
- Public Interest Declassification Board, letter to President Trump on 9/11 records, June 30, 2026 (PDF)
- Public Interest Declassification Board, “Long-Sought 9/11 Records Now Declassified and Available to the Public,” Sept. 11, 2026 (statement)
- 9/11 Commission, Memorandum for the Record of interview with President Bush and Vice President Cheney, released 2022 (PDF)
Filed under: Interagency Security Classification Appeals Panel / National Archives