Nixons plan to threaten the CIA with JFK's assassination

[Rich Taylor]

While not anything new, still interesting to ponder why the government wants to keep the remaining JFK files surpressed.

 

Nixon’s Plan to Threaten the CIA on JFK’s Assassination - POLITICO

[Henry Frost]

Hmm, “the whole Bay of Pigs thing,”.  I wonder what that's a code for?

In December 2021, President Biden said this about the JFK assassination files still being held back:

“Temporary continued postponement is necessary to protect against identifiable harm to the military defense, intelligence operations, law enforcement, or the conduct of foreign relations that is of such gravity that it outweighs the public interest in immediate disclosure.”

Source

So does that means that the Pentagon, CIA, FBI and Cuba are mentioned in the unreleased files?

[Pete Mellor]

5 minutes ago, Henry Frost said:

“Temporary continued postponement is necessary to protect against identifiable harm to the military defense, intelligence operations, law enforcement, or the conduct of foreign relations that is of such gravity that it outweighs the public interest in immediate disclosure.”

So, I reckon we are going to get that same sentence in December.

[Michael Griffith]

19 hours ago, Henry Frost said:

In December 2021, President Biden said this about the JFK assassination files still being held back:

“Temporary continued postponement is necessary to protect against identifiable harm to the military defense, intelligence operations, law enforcement, or the conduct of foreign relations that is of such gravity that it outweighs the public interest in immediate disclosure.”

Since the CIA and the FBI managed to talk Trump into believing this nonsense, we can't be too shocked that they were able to do the same thing with Biden. It's very disappointing and frustrating.

Edited September 9, 2022 by Michael Griffith

[Benjamin Cole]

https://www.kennedysandking.com/articles/biden-trump-the-cia-reflections-in-a-dark-mirror-nixon-vs-helms-1971

I wrote about this episode. 

The BOP thing is troubling in another way: An elected US President asked for documents from a federal intelligence agency, and was stonewalled. 

So...who runs the country? Obviously, without debate, a US President must be able to demand to see any document in federal custody and ASAP.  It is not for intel agencies to decide what, and what not, an elected US President sees. 

This leads to a troubling standard in current context, that I have not seen debated in the M$M: Can a US President unilaterally declassify documents, and immediately?  

The answer has to be "yes." Otherwise you have a standard in which the intel agencies decide what is classified, and not the elected US President. 

Who wants this: A President decides the public is entitled to see a document, but it overruled by an intel agency? 

Yes, "bad case makes for bad law," as some lawyers say.

That is, in the present, there is a temptation to say, "Oh, Trump cannot declassify documents." 

Anti-Trump sentiments are so strong that we are witnessing a daily enlargement of the national security state.  

The post-9/11 days come to mind. 

 

 

 

[Barry Keane]

The real power does not lay with the president.

[Paul Brancato]

3 hours ago, Barry Keane said:

The real power does not lay with the president.

Nor with Congress.

[Barry Keane]

2 hours ago, Paul Brancato said:

Nor with Congress.

Or the people!

[Pat Speer]

9 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

https://www.kennedysandking.com/articles/biden-trump-the-cia-reflections-in-a-dark-mirror-nixon-vs-helms-1971

I wrote about this episode. 

The BOP thing is troubling in another way: An elected US President asked for documents from a federal intelligence agency, and was stonewalled. 

So...who runs the country? Obviously, without debate, a US President must be able to demand to see any document in federal custody and ASAP.  It is not for intel agencies to decide what, and what not, an elected US President sees. 

This leads to a troubling standard in current context, that I have not seen debated in the M$M: Can a US President unilaterally declassify documents, and immediately?  

The answer has to be "yes." Otherwise you have a standard in which the intel agencies decide what is classified, and not the elected US President. 

Who wants this: A President decides the public is entitled to see a document, but it overruled by an intel agency? 

Yes, "bad case makes for bad law," as some lawyers say.

That is, in the present, there is a temptation to say, "Oh, Trump cannot declassify documents." 

Anti-Trump sentiments are so strong that we are witnessing a daily enlargement of the national security state.  

The post-9/11 days come to mind. 

 

 

 

There are systems in place to declassify documents. A President can''t just say he "declassifies" documents without individually identifying them, and alerting the agencies involved and the archives that these documents have been declassified. You keep acting as though the U.S. has a monarchy, and that Trump was our king. He in fact did not come to power by the will of God, or the will of the people. If he legitimately won an election, it was through a quirk of fate and a long-outdated loophole created for slave-owners. He did not have the power to arbitrarily declassify documents, and the U.S. was safer for it.

As has been pointed out ad nauseam, moreover, the existence of classified material at Mar-a-Lago is only part of the story. He took over 15,000 documents with him when he left office. These documents belonged to the U.S. Government, the people, and not him. It was a crime for him to take these documents. An investigation needs to be conducted on how he got these documents, and why he thought he could just take them. It seems obvious, moreover, that a number of people helped him in this theft, and that they should all be held accountable. 

Do you disagree?

[Benjamin Cole]

4 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

There are systems in place to declassify documents. A President can''t just say he "declassifies" documents without individually identifying them, and alerting the agencies involved and the archives that these documents have been declassified. You keep acting as though the U.S. has a monarchy, and that Trump was our king. He in fact did not come to power by the will of God, or the will of the people. If he legitimately won an election, it was through a quirk of fate and a long-outdated loophole created for slave-owners. He did not have the power to arbitrarily declassify documents, and the U.S. was safer for it.

As has been pointed out ad nauseam, moreover, the existence of classified material at Mar-a-Lago is only part of the story. He took over 15,000 documents with him when he left office. These documents belonged to the U.S. Government, the people, and not him. It was a crime for him to take these documents. An investigation needs to be conducted on how he got these documents, and why he thought he could just take them. It seems obvious, moreover, that a number of people helped him in this theft, and that they should all be held accountable. 

Do you disagree?

PS-

Well, we have to agree to disagree on this one.

For me, this is a perfect example of "bad case makes for bad law." 

Yes, Trump is not a likable character (and also a tremendously divisive diversion from real issues).  

So, if a Trump says, "I have unilaterally declassified these documents," the reaction is hackles up. 

The alternative, that a President has to go through proper channels and receive approval to declassify documents, is an anathema---the Deep State will decide what gets declassified, not an elected US President?

Surely, yours is not a tenable position. 

You have posited Trump was not a legitimate President, due to the Electoral College system. You mirror who, in your dismissal of US law and election results?

(BTW, I would prefer direct popular election of the US President, which is more democratic, and would also reduce the incentive to gimmick state elections.) 

However, Trump was a legitimate US President, under current law.  I am surprised to hear you say different. 

This sentence of yours is deeply troubling: "He (Trump, a US President) did not have the power to arbitrarily declassify documents, and the U.S. was safer for it."

Whether  declassification is arbitrary or not is not important. I affirm a US President must have the right to immediately declassify any document. What strikes you as arbitrary, or what is presented in the M$M as dangerous and arbitrary, may not be to the next guy. 

As an aside, the public is constantly told of threats to US security due to documents release.

"Assange must go to prison---national security was imperiled." 

The JFK records must remain under seal. The Pentagon Papers should not have published. 

You know, as well as I, usually this is bunk. Are you less safe due to Julian Assange?  The release of JFK Records would mean Gulf Coast states are occupied by Russia? Publishing the Pentagon Papers was a treasonous act? 

Nixon (who I loathed) had the right to see any document in the federal government. Trump had the right to declassify anything.

The alternative---the Deep State decides who see what, and if. 

There have been strings of US Presidents I thought were dangerous to America--LBJ, Nixon, the Bushes. They got the US into fantastically expensive yet counter-productive foreign wars. 

Clinton's embrace of NAFTA was dangerous to the US social fabric, as was Obama's embrace of globalism. 

US elites wanted cheap labor, so open borders for low-cost labor has been a dangerous norm. 

Release of documents? That strikes me as a pimple of the butt of buffalo. 

Dangerous? How about the much-respected William Cohen, former Clinton Defense Secy and now leading member of the China Lobby? He says China is a competitor, just like France, Great Britain or Germany. 

 

 

 

 

 

[Paul Brancato]

2 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

PS-

Well, we have to agree to disagree on this one.

For me, this is a perfect example of "bad case makes for bad law." 

Yes, Trump is not a likable character (and also a tremendously divisive diversion from real issues).  

So, if a Trump says, "I have unilaterally declassified these documents," the reaction is hackles up. 

The alternative, that a President has to go through proper channels and receive approval to declassify documents, is an anathema---the Deep State will decide what gets declassified, not an elected US President?

Surely, yours is not a tenable position. 

You have posited Trump was not a legitimate President, due to the Electoral College system. You mirror who, in your dismissal of US law and election results?

(BTW, I would prefer direct popular election of the US President, which is more democratic, and would also reduce the incentive to gimmick state elections.) 

However, Trump was a legitimate US President, under current law.  I am surprised to hear you say different. 

This sentence of yours is deeply troubling: "He (Trump, a US President) did not have the power to arbitrarily declassify documents, and the U.S. was safer for it."

Whether  declassification is arbitrary or not is not important. I affirm a US President must have the right to immediately declassify any document. What strikes you as arbitrary, or what is presented in the M$M as dangerous and arbitrary, may not be to the next guy. 

As an aside, the public is constantly told of threats to US security due to documents release.

"Assange must go to prison---national security was imperiled." 

The JFK records must remain under seal. The Pentagon Papers should not have published. 

You know, as well as I, usually this is bunk. Are you less safe due to Julian Assange?  The release of JFK Records would mean Gulf Coast states are occupied by Russia? Publishing the Pentagon Papers was a treasonous act? 

Nixon (who I loathed) had the right to see any document in the federal government. Trump had the right to declassify anything.

The alternative---the Deep State decides who see what, and if. 

There have been strings of US Presidents I thought were dangerous to America--LBJ, Nixon, the Bushes. They got the US into fantastically expensive yet counter-productive foreign wars. 

Clinton's embrace of NAFTA was dangerous to the US social fabric, as was Obama's embrace of globalism. 

US elites wanted cheap labor, so open borders for low-cost labor has been a dangerous norm. 

Release of documents? That strikes me as a pimple of the butt of buffalo. 

Dangerous? How about the much-respected William Cohen, former Clinton Defense Secy and now leading member of the China Lobby? He says China is a competitor, just like France, Great Britain or Germany. 

 

 

 

 

 

Come on Ben - Pat put it so simply. If Obama or Bush or Biden did likewise I’d feel the same. Trump doing what he did doesn’t make him a hero of the People against the Deep State, it makes him what he is - self serving, narcissistic sociopathic power hungry individual.

[Benjamin Cole]

12 minutes ago, Paul Brancato said:

Come on Ben - Pat put it so simply. If Obama or Bush or Biden did likewise I’d feel the same. Trump doing what he did doesn’t make him a hero of the People against the Deep State, it makes him what he is - self serving, narcissistic sociopathic power hungry individual.

Paul B-

You are missing the underlying principle: Does the DS control what people see, or an elected US President?

[Pat Speer]

3 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

Paul B-

You are missing the underlying principle: Does the DS control what people see, or an elected US President?

My words were not as clear as I meant them to be. Our disagreement may not be as strong as it seems. I believe a President has the right to declassify documents, I believe, yes, even Trump had the right to declassify documents. By "arbitrarily declassify" documents I meant declassifying documents with a wave of a hand, without writing down what documents were declassified or alerting the agencies responsible. Trump's claim he could do this is ridiculous, IMO. And not just my opinion. I have yet to read anything by anyone with a brain cell arguing that a President (which is, after all, a temp job) could just declassify stuff because he felt like it, without telling anyone else about it. I hope you realize that a vast majority of classified records are not classified in isolation, and that reference to an incident or a contact determined to be classified might be repeated on hundreds of related documents. If Trump did in fact believe the documents he stole were no longer classified because he waved his hand and spoke some gibberish, he was as good as taking a dump on our entire intelligence apparatus. No one would know what was classified or not. No one would know what was top secret or not. People might start leaking secrets because they believed Trump had declassified them, when in fact he had simply burped on his way to dinner. 

[Benjamin Cole]

10 minutes ago, Pat Speer said:

My words were not as clear as I meant them to be. Our disagreement may not be as strong as it seems. I believe a President has the right to declassify documents, I believe, yes, even Trump had the right to declassify documents. By "arbitrarily declassify" documents I meant declassifying documents with a wave of a hand, without writing down what documents were declassified or alerting the agencies responsible. Trump's claim he could do this is ridiculous, IMO. And not just my opinion. I have yet to read anything by anyone with a brain cell arguing that a President (which is, after all, a temp job) could just declassify stuff because he felt like it, without telling anyone else about it. I hope you realize that a vast majority of classified records are not classified in isolation, and that reference to an incident or a contact determined to be classified might be repeated on hundreds of related documents. If Trump did in fact believe the documents he stole were no longer classified because he waved his hand and spoke some gibberish, he was as good as taking a dump on our entire intelligence apparatus. No one would know what was classified or not. No one would know what was top secret or not. People might start leaking secrets because they believed Trump had declassified them, when in fact he had simply burped on his way to dinner. 

Well, happy I am to say that yes, we agree, an elected President should keep a register that notifies other agencies of what has been declassified. 

A sensible President would not ask permission, but would ask, "What are the consequences of releasing this information?" 

No, Trump was not a sensible US President. 

BTW, stay skeptical. There is an alliance between the M$M, the DS and the Donks. So now it is leaked Trump has "nuclear documents." It is headlines. Planted headlines and faux hysteria? 

Sometimes I am reminded of the old, old machine party politics days and allied newspapers....

[Kirk Gallaway]

8 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

Well, happy I am to say that yes, we agree, an elected President should keep a register that notifies other agencies of what has been declassified. 

A sensible President would not ask permission, but would ask, "What are the consequences of releasing this information?" 

No, Trump was not a sensible US President. 

BTW, stay skeptical. There is an alliance between the M$M, the DS and the Donks. So now it is leaked Trump has "nuclear documents." It is headlines. Planted headlines and faux hysteria? 

Sometimes I am reminded of the old, old machine party politics days and allied newspapers....

Oh, so now not sensible, but preferable Ben?

Like a tyrant out of power hasn't ever tried to force his subjects to pick between him and the present government? And Ben just knee jerk swallows it and becomes his disciple and  proclaims to everyone here his allegiance to Trump over the government, and he actually thinks he's an original for thinking that?

How much more willing an attitude could a slave have?

 

"There's a sucker born every minute"

P.T. Barnum