Before September 11, 2001, the Central Intelligence Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation were aware of a specific threat to the United States involving the individuals who carried out the September 11, 2001 attacks.
NOT BSTOTAL BS
MOSTLY BS — Verdict: Mostly False
Verified by Lenz ·
The Short Version
The evidence shows only a limited kernel of truth. Before 9/11, the CIA had important information about two future hijackers, but the FBI did not receive key details in time, and official investigations found that intelligence agencies had not identified a specific attack plan involving the 9/11 perpetrators. The claim overstates both the degree of shared CIA-FBI awareness and the specificity of the threat.
Caveats
Knowing that some future hijackers were al-Qaeda-linked is not the same as knowing they were part of a specific imminent attack on the United States.
The claim blurs a major distinction between CIA-held intelligence and FBI awareness; the record shows key information was not promptly shared.
Most of the eventual hijackers were not known to U.S. intelligence beforehand, so the claim implies a broader perpetrator-linked awareness than the evidence supports.