WASHINGTON, Aug. 5 (UPI) -- The Treasury Department will not provide the Senate with a list of Saudi terror suspects, the New York Times said Tuesday.
The action was the second in two weeks to set the White House and Congress at odds about the Saudis and federal intelligence-gathering related to the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.
Moreover, the move contradicted an assertion made Thursday by senior Treasury official Richard Newcomb, who told the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee in a hearing on Saudi sponsorship of terrorism the list was not classified and his agency would turn it over to the Senate within 24 hours.
But Monday evening, the department advised the committee it would soon send a letter declaring the information classified and thus unavailable to the public.
"The information requested relates to ongoing U.S. government efforts to disrupt terrorist financing," Taylor Griffin, a department spokesman, said. "Public disclosure at this time would frustrate those efforts."
