Florida Bulldog founder Dan Christensen never thought that 23 years later, he’d still be covering the terrorist attacks he watched on TV.
Dan Christensen was a courts reporter for the Daily Business Review in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, when he watched the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks unfold live on television along with millions around the globe.
He never anticipated those events 1,000 miles away would become the biggest news story of his half-century career.
âItâs just been a great story, a very important story, that The New York Times and The Washington Post have failed to cover, frankly,â Christensen told The Epoch Times.
âAnd they should,â he said. âI mean, this is a local story for both of them and yet they just seem to have moved on completely from it.â
The storyâunveiled over two decades of drip-drip-drip revelations and marathon court proceedingsâis the 19 hijackers, including 15 Saudis, were assisted by a support network associated with, or part of, the Saudi government, he says.
It took dogged persistence by a little-known news startup to spur the investigation along.
For a decade, the case has focused on disclosing documents that allegedly link 9/11 hijackers with Saudi officials.
All await Danielsâ ruling.

Veteran courts reporter and Florida Bulldog founder Dan Christensen. Courtesy of Dan Christensen
Tip Leads To 13-Year Odyssey
Christensen was laid off by the Daily Business Review and said he created Broward Bulldog in 2009, a nonprofit affiliated with the Investigative News Networkânow the Institute for Nonprofit Newsâto fill a growing gap between an event-oriented, TV-driven, nationalized news industry and local media âattempting to cover City Hall.â
The 9/11 attacks became his story in 2011 when authors Anthony Summers and Robbyn Swan, who lived locally, approached him with a tip.
âTony called me and said, âHey, weâve got this lead we want to run down,ââ that was too late to get into the book but should be investigated, Christensen said.
Summers had learned a Saudi family living in Prestancia, a subdivision near Sarasota, had contacts with three hijackersâMohamed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi, Ziad Jarrahâin 2000 when they were enrolled in a pilot program in Venice, about 10 miles south.
âAtta and some of the other hijackers had been to their homeâ on numerous occasions, Christensen said. âAnd so, we ended up running, I think, a pretty good piece that ran simultaneously on our site and we also sold it to The Miami Herald. They ran it page one that day.â

Photos released by the FBI of 9/11 hijackers Nawaf al-Hazmi, left, and Khalid al-Mihdhar, right, who lived in San Diego the year prior to the attacks. FBI
Unfolding Untold History
Christensen hasnât just reported news, heâs made it. Long before The New York Times, CBS News, CNN, NewsNation, ProPublica, and others intervened, it was Florida Bulldog, often alone, applying the pressure that has slowly induced release of thousand pages of 9/11 documents.
The âcasing videosâ of Capitol Hill and other locations were made by Omar al-Bayoumi in 1999. It was seized, along with sketches, equations, and calculations, by London police when Bayoumi was arrested 10 days after 9/11.
The materials, obtained by the FBI, documented how Bayoumi assisted hijackers Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar in San Diego in 2000â2001.
Christensen sued the FBI twice to get Operation Encore records, and âit was so heavily censored at the time, we couldnât see the name âOperation Encoreâ on it.â
Florida Bulldog wrote its first Operation Encore story in December 2016. Then-Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla.), whoâd served on the 9/11 Commission, said it was significant âbecause itâs something that had never been released before,â Christensen said.
âNobody realized that after the 9/11 Commission shutdown in 2004 that there was any continuing investigation. So this went on for 10 years, and almost nobody at the FBI acknowledged it, and nobody in Congress apparently knew anything about it,â he said. âYet they dug out all this information thatâs now being used to, hopefully, open this up some more.â
It is a local story with global implications and international intrigue, he said.
âThatâs whatâs weird about all this, man. Iâm a local reporter and I have no expertise in covering international affairs. Iâm no journalistic expert when it comes to covering issues in the Middle East,â Christensen said.
Florida Bulldog has no subscribers, about 5,000 daily readers, and 4,000 Facebook followers. Its five-person staff of veteran reportersââthere are no students hereââpublishes up to four times a week and is largely funded by contributions.
Author Michael Connelly, who âtook my slot covering morning copsâ in Miami decades ago, is among Florida Bulldogâs biggest supporters, Christensen said.

The crop-dusting airplane that suspected terrorist Mohamed Atta once allegedly tried to rent sits idle behind police tape on a Belle Glades, Fla. airfield, on Sept. 24, 2001. Kelly Owen/Getty Images
âThereâs More To Comeâ
Covering the Saudi-9/11 connections as a small digital South Florida news site has challenges, but also advantages, Christensen said.
âThe very thing that killed newspapers kind of saved my butt here by allowing me to set up the Bulldog,â he said. âAnd frankly, if I had not been able to do that, I would never have been able to cover this story as I have, because they would have pulled me off to do other things.â
Christensen is motivated by 9/11 survivors and families he said are treated as inconvenient nuisances by their own government and media.
They âhave some good lawyers, but they donât seem to have many friends in the press,â he said. âIâm concerned about these people and try to do my bit by just making sure the storyâs covered in a reasonable way.â
The order has âproduced thousands of pagesâ but few media outlets have âlooked at them and wrote anything about them,â Christensen said. âI got a ton of stories out of them.â
In the meantime, Judge Danielsâ decision on Saudi Arabiaâs motion to dismiss 9/11 familiesâ lawsuit is pending.
Christensen wonât speculate on that ruling or on what comes next.
But he knows two things.
Florida Bulldog will cover it. âAnd,â as his latest update states, âthereâs more to come.â
Original News Source Link – Epoch Times
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