No, actor James Woods didn't warn FBI about Sept. 11 attacks ahead of time | Fact check

Joedy McCreary, USA TODAY
Updated ·3 min read
14

The claim: Actor James Woods warned the FBI about the Sept. 11 attacks a month ahead of time

A Sept. 11 Facebook post (direct link, archive link) shows actor James Woods being interviewed by Bill O’Reilly on Fox News.

“James Woods warned the FBI about 9/11 a month before the attacks,” reads the caption.

A similar version on X, formerly Twitter, was reposted more than 2,000 times in one day.

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Our rating: False

The video leaves out Woods’ statement that he did not report the encounter to the FBI until after the attacks. In the same interview, Woods objects to the suggestion that the agency ignored a warning from him.

'I did not report this to the FBI before Sept. 11'

The video shows a clip from Woods’ appearance on O’Reilly’s Fox News show on Feb. 15, 2002, in which he discussed a flight he took from Boston to Los Angeles in August 2001.

The actor described how he observed four suspicious-looking men and how the day after the Sept. 11 attacks he was visited by the FBI at his home to discuss those men. He said he believed the men were terrorists rehearsing the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

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But the two-minute Facebook video leaves out a key part of the interview: It wasn’t until the day after the attacks that Woods notified the FBI about his concerns, according to the full interview posted to YouTube.

As the attacks unfolded, Woods said the flight a month earlier was on his mind, and a friend visiting his home that evening also mentioned it. After thinking about it overnight, he said he contacted his local FBI office the next day.

The agents visited his home on Sept. 13, he said, to discuss the Boston to Los Angeles flight.

“One thing I must clear up that has been sort of misreported in the press,” Woods said during the interview. “I did not report this to the FBI before Sept. 11.”

“Right. Just to the FAA,” O’Reilly interjected, referring to Woods' earlier statement that his initial suspicions about the four men, which he shared with a flight attendant, were reported to the Federal Aviation Administration.

“And it was only done, as I understand it, by the flight crew,” Woods said.

Woods then went on to defend the FBI from what he described as “people who love to take pot shots” at it.

“They’ll say, ‘Oh, you told the FBI and they didn't do anything,’” Woods said. “That's completely and utterly wrong.”

USA TODAY reached out to Woods and to the social media users who shared the post but did not immediately receive responses.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: James Woods called FBI day after 9/11, not month before | Fact check