Twenty-five years after 3,000 Americans were murdered, the intelligence establishment is still burying records that could expose Saudi Arabia's role in the 9/11 attacks — and President Trump's response to families begging for answers was that he'd "look at it when I get back."

The stakes are straightforward: either the U.S. government serves the interests of its own citizens or it continues shielding a foreign kingdom whose nationals made up 15 of the 19 hijackers. For a quarter century, every administration — Bush, Obama, Biden — has chosen the Saudis.

9/11 Families United, led by Terry Strada, has spent years in legal battles against the Kingdom, trying to force accountability. Strada lost her husband Tom at Cantor Fitzgerald on September 11. At Friday's remembrance ceremony at Ground Zero, she directed her plea at Vice President JD Vance, who was attending on behalf of the administration: "Tell the Saudis to stop lying. Tell them that if they want to be friends with the USA, they cannot continue to deny all of this, all of the pain, all of the destruction."

Vance patted his heart in recognition, according to the New York Post. That's a gesture, not a declassification order.

Strada didn't mince words about the bipartisan failure. "Administration after administration, including leaders in front of us here today, chose to protect the Saudis instead of standing with the 9/11 families," she said. "It has been one betrayal after another."

Trump, speaking Sunday in Ireland before boarding Air Force One, offered no commitment: "I'm going to look at it when I get back. I know they asked me Friday. I'll be looking at it." That's the same kind of non-answer the deep state depends on — a promise to consider, not a promise to act.

What's actually in those files? We already know enough to ask harder questions. A September 2010 FBI memo, declassified just last year, reported that two Saudi state employees — Mutaib al Sudairy and Adel Mohammad al Sadhan — had a "past connection" to the hijackers and may have served as an "advance team" for the terrorists. That memo came from an FBI investigation code-named Operation Encor, run out of the New York Field Office. If that's what slipped out, what's still locked behind classification?

Strada told the Post that Biden "stopped with releasing documents" and that Trump "has surely seen these and affirmed his beliefs. He should apply pressure now, as only he can."

The nephew of another victim, Marsh & McLennan vice president Lisa Marie Terry, cut to the point: "Release the unredacted files that implicate Saudi Arabia while what's left of the victims' families are still alive."

The Saudi government emphatically denies any role. Osama bin Laden, born in Saudi Arabia though stripped of citizenship in 1994, led Al Qaeda. The attacks killed 2,977 people.

The question neither outlet pressed: Who exactly inside the intelligence apparatus is fighting declassification, and what are they hiding? The FBI, CIA, and NSA don't classify documents for national security — they classify them for institutional security. A quarter century of secrecy protects someone, and it isn't the American people. Trump has the authority to declassify. Whether he has the will to cross the intelligence community — the same community that spent years trying to undermine his presidency — remains an open question.

The families are running out of time. The files are not.