Rand Paul wants the infamous '28 pages' of secret 9/11 files released

For more than a decade, a chunk of a high-level Congressional report that allegedly shows ties between 9/11 terrorists and the Saudi Arabian government has been classified.

Now, a bipartisan group of lawmakers is pushing to make the redacted section public.

On Tuesday, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) joined a group of bipartisan lawmakers promoting legislation that would release a 28 page report detailing foreign government connections to terrorists who carried out the September 11, 2001 attacks.

"We cannot let page after page of blanked-out documents be obscured by a veil, leaving these family members to wonder if there is additional information surrounding these horrible acts," Paul said in a press conference on Tuesday, according to the Washington Post.

The 28 pages are part of a larger Congressional report on 9/11 intelligence released in 2002 called the Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities Before and After the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001. As the New Yorker notes, the Bush administration decided to withhold parts, claiming the contents would reveal intelligence gathering methods and make it more difficult to find terrorists.

The redacted section has been closely held possibly because the pages show how much the Saudi government knew about 9/11 hijackers. Whether the report shows a negligent government that ignored the attacks, or a more proactive government that is financially connected to the attackers is unclear.

The Saudi government was one of the Bush administration's closest allies in the Middle East. Some lawmakers who have seen the pages, including Rep. Walter Jones (R-North Carolina), suggest the White House may have been hesitant to release the pages because the administration would look bad for its ties with the Saudis.

"There's nothing in it about national security," Jones told the New Yorker. "It's about the Bush Administration and its relationship with the Saudis."

The Saudi government denies the connection.

It's unclear what actions the intelligence community took after the report. As the Daily Beast notes, the information in the report was passed on to the FBI to investigate further in 2003, but it's unclear what the results of the investigation were.

Along with Democratic co-sponsors Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) and Sen. Kristen Gillibrand (D-New York) in the Senate, Paul's current allies in the House are also pushing for release. Congressman Jones, who has been a vocal advocate for the documents' release for years, is reaching out to House lawmakers about supporting a resolution calling for the Obama administration to release the information.

The White House is now considering whether it will release the pages on its own. President Obama has previously said he supports such a move.

"The administration, in response to a specific congressional request, last year asked the intelligence community to conduct a classification review of that material," White House spokesperson Josh Earnest said earlier this year.