Federal Judge to Rule on JFK Records Lawsuit
Key issues face a jurist who misstated the findings of the House Select Committee on Assassinations
A federal judge in San Francisco will soon rule on key issues in the case of Mary Ferrell Foundation v President Biden and the National Archives. The foundation and JFK researchers Josiah Thompson and Dr. Gary Aguilar filed the lawsuit on Oct. 19, 2022, charging President Joe Biden and the National Archives with improper enforcement of the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act, which was passed unanimously by Congress in 1992.
The Mary Ferrell Foundation, a nonprofit educational organization based in Massachusetts, hosts a website with the internet’s largest collection of searchable JFK assassination records.
Last week, Chief Judge Richard Seeborg canceled oral arguments scheduled for Jan. 18, indicating that he may be close to ruling on a flurry of motions from the plaintiffs and the Justice Department.
Core of the Case
More than six years have passed since the deadline for full disclosure of the government’s assassination-related records, as mandated by the JFK Records Act. The law set Oct. 26, 2017, as the date for all assassination records to be released to the public, “except in the rarest of cases.”
Yet in 2024, more than 3,400 JFK files still contain redactions on orders from the White House. President Donald Trump issued memoranda decreeing postponement of JFK file releases in 2017 and 2018. President Biden did the same in 2021 and 2022.
Last June, Biden went one step further. After lifting some redactions in a few hundred documents, the president issued a memorandum announcing his “final certification” under the JFK Act. His action effectively gutted the deadlines written into the JFK Records Act, a move that I have described on this site as “sinister.”
A key issue before Judge Seeborg is a new system for declassifying the remaining JFK files, devised by the CIA and approved by Biden. The plaintiffs argue that the CIA’s “Transparency Plan” is “ultra vires,” i.e., it sets new legal conditions that go beyond the parameters established by the JFK Records Act and thus flout the will of Congress.
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