The suit claims illegal withholding of disclosures regarding a historical event.
QUICK FACTS:
- A new lawsuit aims to compel the Biden administration and the National Archives to make available all of the remaining official records on the assassination of former President John F. Kennedy.
- The action was brought by the Mary Ferrell Foundation, in the most recent effort to make public a wealth of information pertaining to Kennedy’s assassination, which has long been the focus of conjecture and rumors.
- In their suit, the group asserts that the government is not properly implementing the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992.
- The act was enacted without opposition for the purpose of making JFK assassination records public by 2017.
SUIT DETAILS:
- The suit asks a judge to void a decision by President Joe Biden to delay the release of the records from the national archives.
- The Mary Ferrell Foundation claims that the government redacted records involving the Central Intelligence Agency, Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, the alleged JFK shooter Lee Harvey Oswald and more.
- The foundation is also calling on the National Archives to find records “known to exist but that are not part of the JFK Collection.”
- “What the CIA is hiding is the operational interest of senior CIA officials in Lee Harvey Oswald, while President Kennedy was still alive,” Jefferson Morley, vice president of the nonpartisan Mary Ferrell Foundation, told journalists.
BACKGROUND:
- Biden postponed the release of the documents in 2021, saying that about 16,000 documents tied to Kennedy’s death couldn’t be allowed for public viewing, citing the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Mr. Biden called on the National Archives to conduct a one-year review of the documents to ensure that the United States should disclose all details related to the event, “except when the strongest possible reasons counsel otherwise.”
- About 1,500 documents related to JFK’s death were released last December.
