Did the 9/11 Commission refuse to interview William Rodriguez, a custodian in the World Trade Center 7 Building? No, that's not true: Rodriguez was interviewed by the 9/11 Commission Report staff in 2004. The report did not mention Rodriguez saying he was "witnessing bombs" seconds before the first plane hit the World Trade Center, as is claimed in a social media post.
The claim appeared on Instagram (archived here) on March 4, 2024. It read:
More 911 Secrets debunked in the comments. Government corruption to the core!
HI I'M WILLIAM RODRIGUEZ
I was a custodian working in World Trade Center 7 on September 11th, and was the last person who made it out alive. I rescued over a dozen people from the fires, and was awarded on TV. Despite this, the official 9/11 comission report wouldn't take my statements about witnessing bombs going off in the basement of the tower seconds before the plane hit.
This is what the Instagram post looked like at the time of writing:
(Source: Instagram screenshot taken on Tue Mar 5 14:10:11 2024 UTC)
While the post purports to contain text written by Rodriguez, this fact check is focused only on the claim that the 9/11 commission wouldn't take his statement.
According to 911myths.com, Rodriguez was interviewed by the 9/11 Commission. His interview can be found here (archived here). In it, Rodriguez was interviewed by "G. Delgrosso" and "J. Miller." The final 9/11 Commission Report, found online, shows that "G. Delgrosso" was George Delgrosso, an investigator on the commission staff, and "J. Miller" was James Miller, a professional staff member.
According to the interview document, the Rodriguez interview took place on June 8, 2004, at the 9/11 Commission headquarters in New York City. Rodriguez told Delgrosso and Miller he was a porter and "his primary job was to clean the stairwells in the North Tower as an employee of American Building Maintenance ..." according to the interview document. Rodriguez recounted to Delgrosso and Miller that he arrived late to work on September 11, 2001, and was speaking to a colleague when the plane struck the North Tower, or World Trade Center 1, building. There is no evidence in the interview that between the time Rodriguez arrived to work and when the first plane hit the North Tower he witnessed bombs exploding "seconds before the plane hit," as the Instagram post claims, or that he reported as much to interviewers. Lead Stories searched for the words "bomb," "bombs" or "bombing" in the 2004 interview, and found no mention of those words.
Lead Stories reached out to Mike Williams, listed on the first page of the Rodriguez interview as the person who scanned the interview at the 9/11 Commission headquarters. We will update this article when we receive a relevant response.
More Lead Stories fact checks on 9/11 can be found here.
