The House Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets will hold its first hearing on the newly released John F. Kennedy files on April 1 and could probe whether the Central Intelligence Agency misled Congress about the assassination, Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida announced Thursday.
In a Zoom meeting with Mary Ferrell Foundation Vice President Jefferson Morley, Luna shared early details about the nascent probe into the failure of the nation’s intelligence agencies, chiefly the Central Intelligence Agency, to prevent the assassination of Kennedy.
“The task force and the transparency this is providing is long overdue,” Luna said. “The reason that you have such an array of theories is because the government was not transparent.”
Morley, a longtime independent investigator of the JFK case and declassification advocate, will serve as an expert witness.
An early priority for the committee is ensuring that all of the records eligible for declassification under President Donald Trump’s Jan. 23 executive order are released. The executive order required the director of national intelligence to present a plan for the release of the John F. Kennedy records within 15 days.
Some longtime JFK assassination researchers, including Morley, gave the Trump administration poor marks for the delay of the release of the full document set beyond that timeline.
Trump said while answering questions from reporters in the Oval Office Friday that he directed the National Archives and Records Administration to release the documents even with the unredacted social security numbers of some individuals, likely deceased, expediting the process.
“I was given the task of releasing that because many presidents have gone through it and they haven’t released. I said ‘release,’” Trump said. “We even released social security numbers. I didn’t want anything deleted.”
Luna said that some documents authorized for release under the Biden administration, even before Trump’s executive order, had been held up at the National Archives.
“All too often in Washington, especially when it involves the intelligence agencies, you have stonewalling that takes place,” Luna said. “So you kind of need a pitbull if you will, or multiple pitbulls that can actually go after individuals or agencies to ensure these documents are released.”
The National Archives told Luna that all 80,000 anticipated documents would be scanned and available by the end of the week, she said. Physical copies are available to review in person at the National Archives second headquarters (“Archives II”) in College Park, Maryland. This week the National Archives has released documents in three separate tranches, the latest of which was released at 9:30 p.m. Thursday night. In total, 2,343 separate files containing 77,100 pages have been released since Tuesday.
Luna expressed optimism all records would be released thanks to “massive changes” at the National Archives, the CIA and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. She said that CIA Director John Ratcliffe is supportive of the documents’ release.
Congressional investigators are currently conducting a frenzied search for an alleged CIA Inspector General report flagged by a whistleblower who approached the committee. If verified, according to reporting by Morley, the report could show the CIA misled the House Select Committee on Assassinations, a three-year investigation into the assassination from 1977 to 1979, for fear it would jeopardize CIA operations.
“I know you guys are looking for it, our team is looking for it and I also have the Archives looking for it,” Luna said. “We are working night and day to try to locate this document.”
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