Metro

9/11 families blast Kagan

Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan has gotten an angry thumbs-down from 9/11 family members who say she played a key role in quashing a lawsuit that accused the Saudi kingdom of helping finance the terror attacks.

“Kagan is the main reason why the Supreme Court ruled against the 9/11 families,” said William Doyle, who lost his son in the Twin Towers.

Doyle and thousands of other 9/11 relatives had joined in a suit that traced funding for the 19 hijackers to certain Saudi royals, along with banks, corporations and Islamic charities.

The royals were let off the hook last year at the urging of Kagan, the US solicitor general.

“Kagan protected them,” Doyle said. “I think it’s a huge issue, and I hope it comes up in her confirmation hearings.”

She filed a brief to the Supreme Court last May, arguing that the Foreign Sovereign Immunity Act shielded Saudi princes from the suit’s claims that they gave money to Osama bin Laden and other terrorist leaders or to charities that funneled funds to al Qaeda.

Kagan cited “the potentially significant foreign-relations consequences of subjecting another sovereign state to suit.”

The Supreme Court declined to hear the case.

susan.edelman@ny
post.com