CIA Has Not Complied With Trump's Order on JFK Files

At least six key documents remain out of public view. Rep. Luna is investigating.

CIA headquarters in Langley, Virgina.

The CIA has not turned over any new documents related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in the nine weeks since President Donald Trump’s Jan. 23 executive order requiring “full and complete” disclosure of all JFK records in the government’s possession.

“The Archives has not received new JFK records from any federal agency except for the FBI,” a senior Archives official told JFK Facts this week.

In February, the FBI announced that, in response to the order, it had conducted a new search of its archives and found 2,400 documents, totaling some 14,000 pages, that had not been turned over to the Archives previously.

(The Archives official showed JFK Facts staff the 16 boxes of FBI documents that are now being digitized and catalogued for public release in the coming weeks. While we are still analyzing these records, I can tell you they contain a significant document about Lee Harvey Oswald. More on that in a coming post.)

The Archives released thousands of pages of CIA material beginning on March 18, including seven items identified as potentially significant by JFK Facts. (See my Feb. 14 post, “15 Documents for Rep. Luna’s Investigators.”)

Among the documents was Arthur Schlesinger Jr.’s revelatory memo to JFK, which illuminated the enormous scope of covert operations during Kennedy’s presidency.

A newly declassified transcript revealed a top CIA official lied under oath about the surveillance of Oswald while JFK was alive.

Another much discussed document told the story of Garrett (Gary) Underhill, an arms supplier to the CIA who believed a “small clique” in the Agency was responsible for JFK’s assassination.

While the CIA turned over thousands of JFK files to the Archives in the 1990s, other assassination-related material was identified by researchers and historians but never processed for release. That means the Agency retains JFK documents that have yet to be turned over the Archives, despite a written request for them from Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.), chair of the House Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets.

(Full disclosure: I will be a witness for the task force next week and am advising her and Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Cal., and their staffs on JFK records.)

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, chair House Task Force on Declassification.

Six unseen or redacted JFK documents still in possession of the CIA include: