NDC to ensure appropriate continued release of information as specific identified harm dissipates

[Matt Allison]

I know everyone wants to use the files issue as a political cudgel, but aren't the National Archives the people in charge of this?

Or are we supposed to believe they are a "tool of the deep state" as well?

"Biden added that acting archivist Colleen Shogan told him the process was complete and recommended that he postpone the public release of certain redacted information in the records certified as part of the December 2022 memo."

The Archives' press release says that files will continue to be released:

https://www.archives.gov/press/press-releases/2023/nr23-43

Colleen Shogan was appointed by Biden in 2022 to be the Archivist; after Republicans stalled the appointment (of course), she was finally sworn in 2 months ago 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colleen_Joy_Shogan

 

Edited July 6, 2023 by Matt Allison

[Anthony Thorne]

Dr Colleen Shogan is also a novelist. The blurb below is from her novel STABBING IN THE SENATE. The third volume in her detective series, CALAMITY AT THE CONTINENTAL CLUB, features her heroine Kit Marshall searching for clues at the National Archives.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B017CBHTOE?notRedirectToSDP=1&ref_=dbs_mng_calw_0&storeType=ebooks

 

Quote

Life is good for Kit Marshall. She’s a staffer in D.C. for a popular senator, and she lives with an adoring beagle and a brainy boyfriend with a trust fund. Then, one morning, Kit arrives at the office early and finds her boss, Senator Langsford, impaled by a stainless steel replica of an Army attack helicopter. Panicked, she pulls the weapon out of his chest and instantly becomes the prime suspect in his murder. Circumstances back Kit’s claim of innocence, but her photograph has gone viral, and the heat won’t be off until the killer is found. Well-loved though the senator was, suspects abound. Langsford had begun to vote with his conscience, which meant he was often at odds with his party. Not only had the senator decided to quash the ambitions of a major military contractor, but his likely successor is a congressman he trounced in the last election. Then there’s the suspiciously dry-eyed Widow Langsford. Kit’s tabloid infamy horrifies her boyfriend’s upper-crust family, and it could destroy her career. However, she and her free-spirited friend Meg have a more pressing reason to play sleuth. The police are clueless in more ways than one, and Kit worries that the next task on the killer’s agenda will be to end her life. Book 1 in the Washington Whodunit series.

 

[Benjamin Cole]

Matt:

You are aware that the President of the United States, and, oddly enough, also the Vice President of the United States, have unilateral and unchallenged power to declassify any federal document immediately, and at will? 

(This does not exonerate Trump, who, it is alleged, took documents from the Executive Branch he never declassified.)

EF-JFKA'ers and JFKA researchers, and citizens, are justifiably outraged at the Biden-Garland complicity in the illegal snuffing of the JFK Records Act, and are not cynically using the JFK Records Act as a political cudgel. 

Egads. 

 

 

Edited July 6, 2023 by Benjamin Cole

[Matt Allison]

Oh please. It has been nothing but a political cudgel for you, Ben.

How much time have you spent going through the files that have already been released, hmm?

Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Merrick Garland, etc, rely on other people to advise them on whether or not someone's name should be redacted.

If you have an issue with a particular redaction, time to tell us what it is. Go ahead.

[Lawrence Schnapf]

@Matt Allison NARA does not have declassification authority. The agencies control when their records are declassified. There is a national security executive order that serves as guidance but the agencies have the final call 

The NDC has a mandatory declassification program but it moves at a glacial pace. Again, it works with the agencies who have the final call. Jeff Morley filed a mandatory declassification request o er 10 years ago and has yet to receive any documents.

Transferring future declassification decisions of JFK Records is a violation of the JFK Act which provides the president has sole and non-delegable duty to make such decisions. We will be in court on the 13th to argue this and other issues.1

[James DiEugenio]

To show that this was a dodge, just read this.

 

https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-36/chapter-XII/subchapter-D/part-1260/subpart-C

[James DiEugenio]

Larry may want to comment on this, but I think this is the ultimate middle finger to the JFK Act.

First, many of the documents that Biden allegedly declassified are not declassified in full. And people have pointed this out on this forum.

Secondly, according to our authority, in the last two dumps, nothing was new.

Third, because of the ARRB discoveries, which were significant, there were new documents that were found.  But have not been declassified yet.

Fourth, the argument being made in court right now is that NARA, and only NARA, was the successor to the ARRB. Therefore, they should have completed that job en toto. Without giving deference to the originating agencies.

Fifth, and Larry can correct me on this if I am wrong, there has not been a current and complete public finding guide prepared on all the documents.

Calling this a Transparency Plan is a sick joke.

[Lawrence Schnapf]

@James DiEugenio  all good points.

• what they call a finding guide is abysmal.
• NARA said in the 2000 issues of the federal register where it proposed and then finalized the transfer of the ARRB regs to NARA's section of the federal code of regulations that it was the "successor in function" to the ARRVB. yet it did nothing to follow-up on the outstanding 1998 ARRB search requests nor conducted additional searches when the existence of assassination records that were not in the collection were brought to its attention.
• the transparency plans contain non-statutory grounds for postponement. In other words, they allow for postponements or redactions that the statute does not allow. Biden's December 2022 order said NARA approved these plans.
• Moreover, the statute says the president has the sole and non-delegable duty to make postponement decisons so we are arguing that authorizing the NDC to administer future postponement decisions violates the JFK Act. . we are seeking an order from the court to stop their implementation.
• Biden's  June 30th rrder  basically exclaims "no mas".  By transferring responsibilty for future disclosurses to the NDC, he is essentially returning to the situation that existed before the JFK Act was enacted and that caused Congress to pass the law. Transferring decision-making to the same national security bureaucrats who were in charge before the JFK Act was enacted and expecting a different outcome is the very definition of insanity. 
• The law remains in effect until ALL the assassination records are released in full- including those outside the collection that need to be transferred to the Collection. 

 

[Matt Allison]

If a person like me is unaware of what the most important unreleased stuff is, I'm not sure how this issue can possibly be effectively communicated to John Q. Public.

As I've said elsewhere, put a face on this. Keep it straightforward and easy to understand.

[Benjamin Cole]

7 minutes ago, Matt Allison said:

If a person like me is unaware of what the most important unreleased stuff is, I'm not sure how this issue can possibly be effectively communicated to John Q. Public.

As I've said elsewhere, put a face on this. Keep it straightforward and easy to understand.

Matt:

I have tried to research JFK Records (I have a day job btw) and have contributed, in a small way, to the JFKA research community. 

You can look at KennedysandKing for my work. 

I recently posted on this very forum about the use of the the word "alleged" in a CIA doc describing LHO's visit to the Russian embassy. I think I was the first to bring that doc to light. 

IMHO, you, and forum moderators, are very strong adherents to the D-Party. That's fine, all political stripes should be welcome to the EF-JFKA, from Marxist through libertarian, Donk to 'Phant, lib to conserv.  

But you, and moderators, and one other commenter, perceive posts on the JFK Records Act, and the fascinating prospect of an RFK Presidency, as attacks on the D-Party and Biden. Everything becomes part of the blue v. red kool-aid pissing wars. 

I am flabbergasted that anyone the JFKA research community is not outraged at the Biden-Garland snuff job on the JFK Records Act. 

For me, it is toss-up whether Trump or Biden would be best as the next President. 

IMHO, RFK Jr. is clearly the better option---and he would open up the JFK Records.  

 

 

 

 

[Matt Allison]

2 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

For me, it is toss-up whether Trump or Biden would be best as the next President. 

This is truly a ridiculous sentence.

Like, completely divorced from reality.

[Benjamin Cole]

2 hours ago, Matt Allison said:

This is truly a ridiculous sentence.

Like, completely divorced from reality.

Matt:

The EF-JFKA is a place for many points of view. 

We have an Attorney General, Merrick Garland---who is supposed to uphold the law---who just authored an illegal snuff job on the JFK Records Act, approved by President Biden. 

If you doubt what I say, check with Larry Schnapf, perhaps the nation's leading authority on the JFK Records Act. 

Biden is pretty much a puppet President, a dummy for the intel-state ventriloquist. 

Trump was not aligned with the institutions of DC, media or government. That made him interesting, but he seems to be a truly awful person.

So...you like the choices? You like one better than the other? 

Include me out on those two. 

I like RFK Jr. as of now. 

[James DiEugenio]

The only candidate I have seen who has raised holy heck about this outrage is RFK Jr.

He said this was not a matter of conspiracy, but transparency and the public's belief in its own government.

[Benjamin Cole]

17 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

The only candidate I have seen who has raised holy heck about this outrage is RFK Jr.

He said this was not a matter of conspiracy, but transparency and the public's belief in its own government.

The Op Mock on RFK Jr. is not letting up. 

https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/rfk-vaccines-autism-kennedy-rcna91489

Another smear job, that accuses RFK Jr. (among many other failings):  "He’s essentially arguing that mental illness and disability are reasons to be ashamed and his advocacy would reattach a stigma to disabilities that programs such as the Special Olympics have sought to erase."

Of course, not a word in the op-ed about military outlays, foreign trade policy, the intel state, the JFK Records Act and so on. 

It sure looks like someone sends out talking points or writing templates to "liberal" media, which they slavishly follow.  

Do all these "liberal" journalists really think so much alike?

When did intellectual automatons come to dominate "liberal" discourse? 

 

 

 

[Lawrence Schnapf]

and https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/the-alternative-facts-of-robert-f-kennedy-jr