Trump Backs Off Promise To Release All Suppressed JFK Documents Today; Permits Partial Release

In other words, the new information may be far less than implied by initial news reports, even those from major news organizations. A further implication is that staff disorganization in the White House must have been at a monumental level for a 25-year project regarding what’s been called “The Crime of the Century” to crash into such confusion and secrecy on its deadline day.

The White House issued a statement also saying it was giving federal agencies until March 12 to register objections to remaining documents. The White House scheduled a decision on the those objections by April 26. The CIA and FBI have a long history of resisting disclosures.

Another appendix includes our so-far 43-part “Readers Guide to the JFK Assassination,” which helps show how virtually all major U.S. media continue to support the controversial 1964 Warren Report claiming that former U.S. Marine Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone to kill Kennedy in Dallas. Virtually all major media also couch their coverage in terms of smearing researchers with the term “conspiracy theorists,” a term popularized by the CIA to smear critics of the Warren Report.

Especially notable among the columns this week are those by JFK research experts John M. Newman, Dan Hardway, and Jacob Hornberger.

Notable also is a  news story by the Pittsburgh-Post Gazette in which noted CAPA Chairman Dr. Cyril H. Wecht, the forensic pathologist based in Pittsburgh and shown in his lab, described medical evidence proving that accused JFK assassin could not have killed Kennedy alone, as alleged by the 1964 Warren Commission.

CAPA, in cooperation with the South Texas College of Law / Houston is sponsoring a unique, evidence-based mock trial of The State of Texas vs. Lee Harvey Oswald from Nov. 16-17 to showcase forensic evidence that mainstream media typically ignore. Wecht is among the credentialed experts who will describe their beliefs that the Warren Commission account of Kennedy’s death could not possibly be true. Details here.

Newman, a professional historian and national intelligence expert, argues that he Oswald was an undercover intelligence operative and that agencies have tried through the years to hide embarrassing information.

Hardway, an attorney and former staff investigator for Congress into Oswald’s alleged activities, argues in his column that intelligence agencies and the news media have concocted the smear “conspiracy theory” to deter honest investigations into the Kennedy death.

Hornberger, leader of a Libertarian think tank, an attorney and a book publisher, predicted earlier this week that Trump would back away from his promise to release all documents. Hornberger alleged days ago that Trump likely wanted to make a promise of transparency that would frighten secrets-keepers at agencies in order to encourage them to help protect his own administration’s secrets.

Trump’s White House statement the evening of Oct. 26 contradicting his earlier statements said in part:

The American public expects — and deserves — its Government to provide as much access as possible to the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records (records) so that the people may finally be fully informed about all aspects of this pivotal event. Therefore, I am ordering today that the veil finally be lifted.

At the same time, executive departments and agencies (agencies) have proposed to me that certain information should continue to be redacted because of national security, law enforcement, and foreign affairs concerns.  I have no choice –today — but to accept those redactions rather than allow potentially irreversible harm to our Nation’s security.

To further address these concerns, I am also ordering agencies to re-review each and every one of those redactions over the next 180 days.  At the end of that period, I will order the public disclosure of any information that the agencies cannot demonstrate meets the statutory standard for continued postponement of disclosure under section 5(g)(2)(D) of the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992 (44 U.S.C. 2107 note) (the “Act”).

A CIA spokesperson added:

We welcome the President’s directive to conduct further review of the records in the JFK Assassination Records Collection to identify any additional information that can be released, while still protecting our officers, partners, sources, and methods.CIA has been working diligently to release to the public as much CIA information as possible from the collection.

Pursuant to the JFK Assassination Records Act of 1992, more than 87,000 CIA records were identified as falling within the scope of the collection.

Of those, CIA has already released more than 69,000 records to the public in full, without redaction. Every single one of the approximately 18,000 remaining CIA records in the collection will ultimately be released, with no document withheld in full.

While some of these 18,000 records currently contain targeted redactions, the information redacted represents less than one percent of the total CIA information in the collection.

CIA’s current redactions were undertaken with the intent to protect information in the collection whose disclosure would harm national security — including the names of CIA assets and current and former CIA officers, as well as specific intelligence methods and partnerships that remain viable to protecting the nation today.

The news coverage from mainstream media focused heavily on reporters’ claim that “conspiracy theorists” dominate the debate and steer the public away from what the reporters consistently claim is Oswald’s guilt. The news organizations bring forward for the most part the same few supposed experts who with near-unanimity allege that Oswald in fact killed Kennedy, acting alone.

CNN’s commentators on the evening of Oct. 26 repeatedly mock critics of the official narrative.

Analysis of such coverage must await another days since our immediate goal with this column has been to report the evening’s breaking news.

Future reports will follow up in more depth with analysis of why the U.S. mainstream news media have such a long track record of biased reporting whereby they smear researchers as “conspiracy theorists” instead of evaluating evidence.

Part of that habit, apparently adopted almost unwittingly by younger journalists ignorant of relevant history and following a pack mentality, has been to follow the instructions of a previously declassified CIA document, known as “CIA Dispatch 1035-960.” That memo instructed CIA officers around the world to contact their media and academic contacts and disparage those Warren Commission critics like New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison who were criticizing the Commission’s findings that Lee Harvey Oswald killed JFK and acted alone.

Minutes of CIA meeting that same year indicated fear that Garrison would win a conviction in his murder conspiracy trial of New Orleans businessman Clay Shaw, whom Garrison believe was part of a CIA-organized plot against Kennedy.

Shaw, the only person ever indicted in connection with the JFK murder, was acquitted by a New Orleans jury after he denied that he was involved with the CIA and after many key prosecution witnesses died in untimely fashion.

As a preview of revisiting that era in light of the evidence, we provide here Jim Garrison’s television reply to NBC in response to the network’s smears against him under the right-of-reply rules no longer in force for the broadcast media. Over 27 minutes, Garrison argued in favor of evidence and justice, and against name-calling, particularly against what he called a determined effort by the major news media to provide a dangerous “fairy tale” about the Kennedy murder case.