Thomas Kean - ABC's The Path To 9/11

ABC's The Path To 9/11

Kean served as a paid consultant and spokesman for the ABC miniseries The Path to 9/11, which aired nationally and without commercial interruption on September 10, 2006. On September 11, the second part of the miniseries aired, also without commercial interruption, with the exception of a 20-minute break at 9 pm ET, when President Bush addressed the nation on the fifth anniversary of the September 11 attacks.

While not technically considered a documentary by ABC, prior to its airing, the series drew criticism for misrepresenting facts leading up the September 11 attacks. Many former high-ranking Clinton administration officials, including Clinton himself, and other scholars, publicly questioned the accuracy of the miniseries and asked that it not be aired. Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright called the miniseries' portrayal of her "false and defamatory." Former U.S. Ambassador to Yemen Barbara Bodine also strongly criticized her character's portrayal, complaining in the Los Angeles Times about the "mythmakers" who created the film, calling the project "false." The film depicts Clinton and his administration with being aloof in addressing the al-Qaeda threat, failing to intervene in ways that could have prevented the attack, and being too absorbed in the political dimensions of the Monica Lewinsky scandal to properly defend the nation's national security interests.

Kean defended the docudrama in July 2006 and until the eve of the broadcast, declining to disclose the amount of his payment from ABC for supporting the project.