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Obama Hasn't Read Secret 28 Pages of 9/11 Report, White House Says

'I'm not sure that he felt that it was necessary for him to read those 28 pages,' press secretary Josh Earnest said Monday.
IMAGE: Barack Obama in Saudi Arabia
President Barack Obama and Saudi deputy Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman Al Saud meet at a Gulf Cooperation Council conference in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, last month. The Saudi government has also called for the 28 classified pages of the 2002 9/11 report to be released.Saudi Press Agency / EPA

Even President Barack Obama hasn't seen the secret chapter of Congress' joint 2002 report on Sept. 11 attacks, the White House revealed on Monday.

Press secretary Josh Earnest previously hasn't answered when asked whether Obama had read the pages in question.

But pressure is growing on the administration to declassify the chapter, which makes up 28 of the report's 838 pages, in light of claims made in a lawsuit that blames Saudi Arabia for the 2001 attacks.

"The president obviously reads a lot of material on a day-to-day basis," Earnest said at the daily briefing for the media Monday. "I'm not sure that he felt that it was necessary for him to read those 28 pages."

The chapter also never came up for discussion during Obama's recent visit to Saudi Arabia, where he met with King Salman, Earnest said.

CIA Director John Brennan said Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press" that information in the classified pages was preliminary and uncorroborated, and he said it was likely to be "very, very inaccurate" in discussing Saudi Arabia.

Many current and former U.S. officials with knowledge of the disputed chapter have told NBC News that they only add detail to events already well known to authorities and to members of the public who read the report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States.

Related: What's in the Missing 28 Pages From the 9/11 Inquiry?

Fifteen of the 19 terrorists who crashed airliners into the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon outside Washington, D.C., and in a field in Pennsylvania were Saudi. Relatives of many of the 2,996 people killed in the attacks when believe the Saudi government played some role.

The Saudi government, which has always denied any involvement, has also called for the 28 pages to be released.