“On 10 September 2001 secretary of defense at the time Donald Rumsfeld announced that $2.3 trillion has gone missing from the Pentagon. The next day, 911 the accounting offices were destroyed in the Pentagon. The $2.3 trillion was never brought up again.”
On September 10, 2001, the family of Chilean general René Schneider filed a wrongful-death lawsuit in U.S. federal court accusing Henry Kissinger over the Chile coup, and the very next morning 9/11 exploded onto the news—handily shoving Schneider v. Kissinger into obscurity while Operation Condor stayed safely fogged in the public mind by Hollywood’s conveniently named Three Days of the Condor.
Real, documented event: a civil wrongful-death lawsuit—Schneider v. Kissinger—filed on September 10, 2001 in Washington, D.C., not New York. The next day 9/11 happened, and the coincidence of dates has been spun into the story you quoted.
Below is what actually exists in the record.
1. What did happen: Schneider v. Kissinger (filed 10 Sept 2001)
On September 10, 2001, René and Raúl Schneider, sons of Chilean General René Schneider, filed a civil lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia (D.D.C.) against Henry Kissinger, the U.S. government, and others.
- What the case alleged The complaint charged that, in 1970, President Nixon, National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger, and CIA officials planned a military coup in Chile to prevent socialist candidate Salvador Allende from becoming president, and that they backed a plot to kidnap General Schneider, the Chilean army commander-in-chief, because he opposed a coup and insisted on respecting the constitution. Schneider was shot on October 22, 1970, during a botched kidnapping attempt and died three days later. The lawsuit said this made the U.S. officials civilly liable for wrongful death, summary execution, assault and battery, arbitrary detention, and other human-rights violations.
- Link to Allende The theory of the case was: Schneider’s assassination was part of the U.S. effort to block Allende’s confirmation as president and smooth the path to a coup. Declassified U.S. documents (e.g., Helms’s notes from Nixon’s orders to “prevent Allende from becoming president” and to have the CIA “play a direct role” in a coup) were cited as evidence.
- Where it was filed The court of record is:
United States District Court for the District of Columbia,
E. Barrett Prettyman United States Courthouse, 333 Constitution Ave. NW, Washington, DC.
- Media at the time The case was covered in mainstream outlets right as 9/11 happened. For example, The Guardian ran “Kissinger sued over Chile death” on September 12, 2001, summarizing the claim that Nixon, Kissinger, and Helms ordered steps to prevent Allende from taking power and that the Schneider family had just sued in U.S. federal court. CBS 60 Minutes had aired a segment “Schneider v. Kissinger” on September 9, 2001, laying out the background for U.S. TV viewers.
So: yes, there was a brand-new lawsuit against Kissinger over the Chile coup context, filed the day before 9/11.
2. What happened to that case?
The case did not go to trial, criminal or civil. It was dismissed on legal-doctrine grounds:
- In 2002, the D.D.C. dismissed the Schneider case, largely on the basis of:
- Political question doctrine (courts won’t adjudicate core foreign-policy decisions of the executive), and
- Sovereign immunity and official-acts immunity for U.S. officials acting in their official capacity.
- In 2005, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals (412 F.3d 190) affirmed the dismissal, agreeing that the claims raised non-justiciable political questions and that U.S. officials were immune in U.S. courts for such acts.
- The plaintiffs sought Supreme Court review; the Supreme Court declined to take the case, leaving the dismissal in place.
3. Other Chile-related cases against Kissinger
There were other legal efforts to go after Kissinger around Chile and Operation Condor, but again:
- They were civil, not criminal murder trials in U.S. federal court.
- They were mostly in Washington, D.C. or foreign courts, not Manhattan.
Key ones:
- Horman v. Kissinger (D.D.C., 1977; revived later by CCR)
- Brought by the family of U.S. journalist Charles Horman, disappeared and murdered after the 1973 Chile coup.
- Alleged U.S. complicity and sought to uncover the U.S. role.
- The early suit was voluntarily dismissed; later efforts did not become a U.S. criminal murder trial.
- González-Vera v. Kissinger (D.C. Circuit 2006)
- Brought by Chilean victims of repression following the coup, alleging Kissinger’s participation in overthrowing Allende and installing Pinochet.
- Also dismissed on political-question and immunity grounds; the D.C. Circuit affirmed.
- Foreign criminal investigations / summonses
- A French judge (Roger Le Loire) attempted to summon Kissinger in 2001 regarding the disappearance of French citizens in Chile; Kissinger declined to appear and the U.S. government pushed back.
- Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón (famous from the Pinochet extradition effort) and Chilean/Argentine judges sought to question Kissinger in connection with Operation Condor and human-rights crimes.
These moves contributed to the broader public framing of Kissinger as a de facto war criminal, and to works like Christopher Hitchens’s The Trial of Henry Kissinger—but those are political and rhetorical “trials,” not actual U.S. criminal proceedings.
4. Federal courthouses vs. the buildings destroyed on 9/11
The claim you quoted specifically mentions:
“Federal Court … in NYC … building … curiously destroyed”
Here’s what we actually know:
- The main federal courthouses for the Southern District of New York (SDNY) in 2001 and today are:
- Thurgood Marshall U.S. Courthouse, 40 Centre Street (Foley Square).
- Daniel Patrick Moynihan U.S. Courthouse, 500 Pearl Street, completed in 1996. Both are in the Civic Center/Foley Square area, a few blocks northeast of City Hall—not in the World Trade Center complex—and both are still standing.
- On September 11, 2001, the buildings that collapsed at the World Trade Center were:
- WTC 1 (North Tower)
- WTC 2 (South Tower)
- WTC 7 (47-story office tower to the north of the main plaza, collapsed later that afternoon)
- Tenants in WTC 7 included the SEC, a Secret Service field office, IRS, Salomon Smith Barney, and others—not the federal district court.
5. Summary
Putting the pieces together —
- Real coincidence of dates
- Sept 10, 2001: Schneider family files Schneider v. Kissinger in D.D.C.
- Sept 11, 2001: WTC attacks and collapse of WTC 1, 2, and 7 in NYC.
- Real Chile-related suits and foreign judges targeting Kissinger
- Civil suits in D.C. (Schneider, Horman, González-Vera).
- French, Spanish, Chilean judges trying to question him about Chile and Operation Condor.
- Real WTC 7 tenant list + document-destruction narratives
- WTC 7 did host financial regulators and intelligence offices (SEC, Secret Service, possibly CIA), and their document losses have fueled many secondary theories.
- Rhetorical “trial” language around Kissinger
- Hitchens, human-rights groups, and many critics have framed him as a war criminal and used “trial” terminology in books, articles, and campaigns, e.g. The Trial of Henry Kissinger.
Based on court records, mainstream reporting, and legal databases:
- The only U.S. case filed at that time that comes close is Schneider v. Kissinger.
- It was civil, not criminal; about Schneider’s assassination, not Allende’s death directly (though Allende and the coup are the context).
- It was filed in Washington, D.C., not New York.
- No federal courthouse tied to that case was destroyed in the 9/11 attacks.
6. Bottom line
- Fact: Kissinger was sued several times in U.S. and foreign courts over Chile, including a major civil wrongful-death case filed one day before 9/11.
- Fact: Declassified documents show U.S. covert operations (Project FUBELT / Track II) aimed at blocking Allende and supporting a military coup, and link high-level officials (including Kissinger) to the decision to “play a direct role” in plotting a coup in Chile.
- Fact: Those suits were dismissed on immunity and political-question grounds; no U.S. criminal “murder trial” of Kissinger ever commenced.
- Fact: The federal courts that actually could have heard such a criminal case in New York were not destroyed on 9/11. The destroyed buildings were in the WTC complex, which did not house the federal district courts.
