More than 62 years after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, elements of the US government are still hiding the truth. The media’s obsession with chasing the “smoking gun” trivializes the larger reality: a damning pattern of evidence pointing to government complicity in the cover-up – and possibly even in the crime.
In 1992, Congress had ordered the release of every record on this matter by 2017. Presidents of both parties have demanded compliance. After six decades, Congress and President Trump are fed up with federal agencies that continue to disregard the law, bury evidence, and dishonor the memory of the assassinated president.
This is no accident – it is a deliberate deception that continues to poison public trust to this day. Fed up with the defiance of intelligence agencies, Oversight Chairman Jim Comer (R-Ky.) House task force formed on declassification of federal secrets To break six decades of stonewalling. With Trump’s executive order leading the way, the task force has made real progress, but there is still much work to be done.
For decades, intelligence agencies stymied efforts to release assassination records. Fortunately, that attitude has begun to change. In the last six months, more documents have been made public than in the previous 20 years. Thanks to the work of the House task force and Trump, thousands of pages that were previously redacted now appear online in completely unedited form. executive Order,
No, the “smoking gun” document did not emerge, and frankly, it would be shortsighted to expect it to. Serious researchers and investigators understand that the most disturbing feature of the newly released documents related to the Kennedy assassination is the fact patterns they reveal. These documents confirm what serious researchers have long argued: the CIA’s ties to Lee Harvey Oswald were much stronger than the agency acknowledged.
One of the most damning revelations concerns CIA psychological warfare officer George Jonides, who in 1963 secretly monitored and funded a Cuban exile group called DRE. That group had a direct encounter with Oswald in the months before Kennedy’s death. Fifteen years later, when Congress formed a House select committee on the killings to re-investigate the case, The CIA appointed Jonides as its contact to the committee without disclosing his previous involvement. We now know that Jonides’ real job was not cooperation – it was obstruction.
He withheld information that linked Oswald to CIA operations. To add insult to injury, recent revelations reveal that the CIA awarded Jonides a medal for deceiving Congress.
Another document revealed as a result of Trump’s January 2025 order reveals that the head of the CIA’s assassination program, William K. Harvey secretly obtained false credentials from the Federal Aviation Administration in August 1963, enabling the Kennedy-hatted official to travel secretly to the US while he reportedly served as station chief in Rome. I had already asked CIA Director John Ratcliffe for Harvey’s travel records in 1963. The latest revelation only underlines the importance of the request, which Ratcliffe has promised to fulfill.
Some argue that after 60 years, the details are no longer important. they are wrong. Cover-up destroys trust. When the government suppresses the truth, it promotes conspiracy theories and deepens skepticism. It is now clear that the Warren Commission had reached its conclusions even before the 1964 “investigation” began. Americans are not children who should be hidden from history. They deserve the truth – especially about one of the most traumatic events in modern memory.
The Kennedy assassination was not just another crime. It was a political assassination that changed the course of our country. If intelligence agencies hid their role, directly or indirectly, that concealment distorted American democracy for six decades. The question is no longer just, “Who assassinated President Kennedy?” It’s, “Why has our government fought so hard to hide the whole story from the American people?”
Recent disclosures represent real progress, but important documents are still hidden.
The most important records we should look at:
- Files of the CIA’s Miami Station. Following the assassination, the CIA station in Miami – known as JMWAVE – conducted an internal investigation into whether Cuban exiles had any role in the assassination of JFK. Those files, known as SITREPS, were never released. We know from testimony that senior CIA officials were skeptical of the Warren Commission’s “lone gunman” conclusion. JMWAVE’s chief of operations, David Morales, later boasted to attorney Robert Walton, in reference to President Kennedy, “We took care of that son of a bitch, didn’t we?” Congress and the American public are entitled to see all records of the JMWAVE investigation of the Kennedy assassination.
- Travel Records of William Harvey. Harvey was the CIA officer in charge of an assassination plot against Fidel Castro. He despised the Kennedys. After he was disciplined by the White House for running an unauthorized, reckless operation during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, he was sent to Rome to head a CIA station. Yet a colleague later reported seeing Harvey on a flight to Dallas in the weeks before November 22, 1963, and the CIA still refused to issue the assassination expert’s travel voucher. Why? If Harvey was not in Dallas, we want the records to prove it. And we know that the records are known to the CIA’s FOIA office. We want them to be released.
- FBI tapes of Carlos Marcello. New Orleans mob boss Marcelo openly hated the Kennedys. Before November 22, 1963, he had indicated prior knowledge of the crime. In prison in the 1980s, he also told an FBI informant that he had plotted to assassinate the President. Yet the FBI is still holding off on releasing surveillance tapes that could corroborate his confession. These are records of immense historical value – and the public has a right to hear them.
- Description of Secret Service file destruction. In 1995, three years after Congress unanimously passed the JFK Records Act, the Secret Service destroyed documents related to the assassination. The Murder Records Review Board had explicitly requested that all files be preserved. Instead, the agency tasked with protecting the President illegally destroyed its own records. To date, no one has been held accountable. Who ordered this and why?
- Interviews with Jacqueline and Robert Kennedy.Wesleyan University houses sealed transcripts of interviews given by Jackie Kennedy and Robert Kennedy to historian William Manchester in the mid-1960s. Manchester returned them to the Kennedy family using a “deed of trust”, meaning that the Kennedy family – not the government – controlled the release. They are closed to the public until 2039.
I agree that this is tragic for the Kennedy family, which has borne the burden of two assassinations – that of President Kennedy in 1963 and that of Senator Robert Kennedy (D-N.Y.) in 1968. But Jackie Kennedy was the closest witness to her husband’s assassination. We know from close associates of then-Attorney General Robert Kennedy that he never accepted the “lone gunman” theory. Jackie and RFK’s unfiltered views are of immense historical importance. Keeping them locked up until most living Americans are gone serves no purpose other than privacy.
I believe the work of our task force is to honor the late President and Senator. We should not suppress history.
Each of these records may shed light on what really happened in Dallas. Each is still hidden six decades after the fact.
This should not be a partisan issue. Truth and transparency are American values, and they are reflected in JFK Records Act of 1992Which was passed by Congress without dissent. Trump’s executive order requiring compliance with that law was not a partisan action but a recognition that secrecy had gone on for too long.
I have seen how much opposition still exists within the federal bureaucracy. Agencies delay, improvise, and obfuscate. They hope Congress will tire, the press will move on and the public will forget. This cannot be allowed to happen. As chair of the House Task Force on the Revelation of Federal Secrets, I have also seen what courageous leadership looks like. CIA Director Ratcliffe committed to release joanides files To comply with the President’s orders, and did so regardless of any internal opposition he faced.
Congress must act on what our task force has revealed. I call on both Republicans and Democrats in Congress to demand the full release of all remaining JFK records and to declassify all CIA and FBI files still withheld. Together, we must also investigate and hold the Secret Service accountable for its illegal destruction of records related to November 22, 1963. Congress should hold hearings, issue subpoenas, and, if necessary, pass new legislation to compel full compliance.
If agencies continue to ignore the law, they will face consequences – including budgetary consequences. Every year agencies hide evidence, create suspicion and undermine public trust.
After 62 years, we now know enough to say definitively that the government lied and concealed the truth, starting with the fiction that Lee Harvey Oswald was a “lonely lunatic” with no ties to the intelligence community. Worst of all, it has been clear for decades that the Warren Report’s conclusions were decided before the investigation even began.
The report was a major part of the cover-up and remains a stain on our country – blame for it falls on both Republicans and Democrats, the Commission, the Commission’s staff, and President Lyndon Johnson. All Americans should be horrified by the alleged complicity of the free press in shutting down criticism of the Warren Commission’s findings.
The days of blind acceptance of the Warren Report are over. Americans deserve the truth now – not in 2039.
The assassination of John F. Kennedy was one of the greatest tragedies in American history. The concealment and secrecy that followed was certainly even worse. Now is the time for Congress to complete the work of establishing complete transparency.
Anna Paulina Luna is the U.S. Representative for Florida’s 13th Congressional District. Representative Luna serves on the House Oversight and Foreign Affairs committees and chairs the House Task Force on Declassification of Federal Secrets.
