A retired FBI counterterrorism agent with a notable role in the story of 9/11 says the FBI's Office of the General Counsel told him not to cooperate with attorneys representing 9/11 victims in their suit against the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, because it could harm U.S.-Saudi relations.

In an exclusive interview with 28Pages.org, Kenneth Williams, author of an ignored July 2001 memo warning that Osama bin Laden may be training pilots in the United States, explains why he has now decided to ignore the FBI's instructions, and illustrates how the failure to share critical information continued into the 9/11 investigation - possibly to the benefit of the kingdom.

FBI Priority: Protecting U.S.-Saudi Relationship

The 9/11 plaintiffs - family members, survivors and insurers - allege that officials of the Saudi government provided financial, logistical and other support to the perpetrators of the attacks.

After being contacted by their attorneys in October of last year, Williams notified the FBI legal counsel in Phoenix, where he spent his career. Days later, he received a call from an attorney at the Office of the General Counsel whose name he does not recall.

"She said they didn't want me to cooperate with the plaintiffs' attorneys because it could impact other pending litigation involving the United States government...and because...the Trump administration was trying to develop good relations with the Saudi government," he says.

The housing market is now apparently turning down. Consumer incomes are limited by jobs offshoring and the ability of employers to hold down wages and salaries. The Federal Reserve seems committed to higher interest rates-in my view to protect the exchange value of the US dollar on which Washington's power is based. The arrogant fools in Washington, with whom I spent a quarter century, have, with their bellicosity and sanctions, encouraged nations with independent foreign and economic policies to drop the use of the dollar. This takes some time to accomplish, but Russia, China, Iran, and India are apparently committed to dropping or reducing the use of the US dollar.

A drop in the world demand for dollars can be destabilizing of the dollar's value unless the central banks of Japan, UK, and EU continue to support the dollar's exchange value, either by purchasing dollars with their currencies or by printing offsetting amounts of their currencies to keep the dollar's value stable. So far they have been willing to do both. However, Trump's criticisms of Europe has soured Europe against Trump, with a corresponding weakening of the willingness to cover for the US. Japan's colonial status vis-a-vis the US since the Second World War is being stressed by the hostility that Washington is introducing into Japan's part of the world. The orchestrated Washington tensions with North Korea and China do not serve Japan, and those Japanese politicians who are not heavily on the US payroll are aware that Japan is being put on the line for American, not Japanese interests.

If all this leads, as is likely, to the rise of more independence among Washington's vassals, the vassals are likely to protect themselves from the cost of their independence by removing themselves from the dollar and payments mechanisms associated with the dollar as world currency. This means a drop in the value of the dollar that the Federal Reserve would have to prevent by raising interest rates on dollar investments in order to keep the demand for dollars up sufficiently to protect its value.

With the heat developing on the question of Iran's presence in Syria, a presence which is neither illegitimate nor an invasion of the sorts the US is known for doing, tension in the region is likely to rise. As we write, Israel has already rejected Russia's more than reasonable offer to create a 60-mile buffer between the Israeli border and Iranian forces in Syria, letting the world know its intention that they wouldn't be satisfied on anything less than a virtual Iranian withdrawal from a country where Iran backed forces played a critical role in alliance with Syrian and Russian forces to defeat the world's richest and most brutal terror outfit, the Islamic State/Daesh. Obviously, this defeat did also mean a defeat for the regional, including Israel, and extra-regional actors' plan to 'send Assad home' to pave the way for altering the Middle East's balance of power to their advantage, and thus establish complete dominance over the world's crucial land route and one of the richest energy region. With Iran now firmly established in Syria and the region, Iran's primary enemies - Israel, the US and Saudi Arabia - are bent upon undoing it. Hence, the US withdrawal from the Iran-nuke deal, not because Iran was violating it but because Israel was able to 'convince' Donald Trump of the necessity of doing so.

The idea that Moscow is swaying elections and bringing down US democracy by 'meme-sharing' is preposterous, Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said. The accusations hurled at Russia by the US lawmakers left him baffled.

"It's just hilarious when I hear that funny pictures can undermine American democracy," Lavrov told reporters on Thursday, answering RT correspondent's question about the latest US Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on alleged Russian interference in US domestic affairs.

Experts, brought as witnesses to testify before the Senate on Wednesday, spoke about Russia allegedly using the "less news, more memes" approach online to divide the US public. This led the lawmakers to raise concerns over how Russian "meme-sharing" affects American voters.

"I think that's just paranoia that goes off the scale," Lavrov chuckled, saying that talk of weaponizing memes only makes the Senators themselves look bad. "It's not respectable for American lawmakers to make a sensation out of nothing."

The Syrian government has been restoring its control over the country, with the latest military operation being carried out against jihadists in the south of the Arab Republic.

Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman has stated that he believes that the Syrian front will be more quiet with the restoration of the Assad administration's control.

"From our perspective, the situation is returning to how it was before the civil war, meaning there is a real address, someone responsible, and central rule," Lieberman pointed out.

Asked whether Israel should be less concerned about potential Golan Heights-related tensions, he said: "I believe so."

In July, Lieberman pledged a "harsh response" to any attempts by the Syrian Army to enter the Golan Heights, where a demilitarized zone was established in accordance with the 1974 disengagement agreement.

At the same time, he made it plain that he does not exclude "some kind of relationship" between Israel and Syria even though the two countries are "a long way from that".

The flow of migrants coming to Europe from Africa is likely to grow in the coming years, writes Sputnik Germany contributor Bernhard Schwarz. For decades Libya served as a firewall halting the tide of refugees heading to the EU. Now when Libya lies in ruins European leaders see that late Colonel Muammar Gaddafi was right, Schwarz stressed.

Former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's "prophecy" is turning into reality with destitute Africans violently storming the Spanish-Moroccan border on July 26, writes Sputnik Germany contributor Bernhard Schwarz, stressing that the event sends a strong signal to Berlin.

"Driven by desperation and hunger, they are ready to risk their own lives and the lives of border guards to get to Europe. They will not take no for an answer. Their brutality against the police is shocking and should set the alarm bells ringing for Brussels. So far, the EU has not reacted to the incident, but unless a concrete action plan is presented soon, there is a risk that damaging violence and anarchy will be at the heart of Europe," the German journalist warned.

Anti-Trump FBI agent, Peter Strzok, insisted on maintaining special authorities before joining Special Counsel Robert Mueller's team, according to newly released emails obtained by Judicial Watch.

In a July 13, 2017 email to numerous FBI officials (some of whom are redacted), Strzok says he wants to keep the privileges he had while serving as the deputy assistant director (DAD) in the counterintelligence division (CD) of the FBI:

"Broadly, I need to be able to act at least in the capacity of my old CD DAD job - approve NSLs [national security letters], conduct [redacted] declassify information, [redacted] agent travel, requisitions, etc. Of those, the most problematic and one of the most essential is declassification authority."

President Donald Trump wants to sit down for an interview with special counsel Robert Mueller, according to a Wednesday New York Times report.

Although his legal team is advising against it, Trump reportedly believes the interview will allow him to clear his name, and is renewing a push to allow Mueller to sit down and question the president.

Previously, Trump had stated his desire to interview with Mueller, but also his intention to follow the advice of his attorneys.

J.P. Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said Monday that President Donald Trump's tax cuts, along with some of his other efforts, have helped out the U.S. economy.

"Presidents get a lot of credit [and] a lot of blame for things they didn't do, but the president has done things which accelerated growth," Dimon told CNBC's Wilfred Frost on "Closing Bell." "We needed competitive taxes. The way the American public should be thinking of it is: For 20 years, we've been increasingly uncompetitive, driving capital and brains overseas."

Dimon also said some of the regulatory rollbacks pushed by Trump are helping small businesses. "We've had less small business formation in America than in any other recovery," he said. "This has accelerated the growth. It's been 20 percent over 10 years; it should've been 40. The reason it wasn't 40 is because of a lot of things that we did hurt ourselves."

Donald Trump is about to get the Bob Woodward treatment.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter and author will release "Fear" -- his first book on the Trump administration -- on September 11, 2018, just weeks before the midterm elections that could deliver a strong verdict on the President's first two years in office.

According to sources with knowledge of the book, "Fear" is based on hundreds of hours of taped interviews with first-hand sources and provides an in-depth, probing account of Trump's thoughts and decisions on everything from national security to the Russia investigation to the 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. In addition to interviewing dozens of administration officials, the source said, Woodward was given memos, documents, diaries and notes, including some handwritten by the President.