Roger Odisio Posted August 21 Share Posted August 21 On March 18 the MFF filed an appeal with the 9th circuit court of appeals of Judge Seeborg's atrocious Jan. 18 order in the case. They filed their opening brief with the appeals court March 8. The Dept. of Justice responded July 24. Last week, Aug 13, MFF responded to the DOJ. Their brief is quite good. It covers several issues and goes to the heart of the matter. A few highlights. The JFK Act is a remedial statute because FOIA was inadequate to the job getting records to the public. The judge did not treat the law as such; he never addressed this point. When MFF asked the judge to order NARA to stop advising researchers to file actions under FOIA, he ignored the request. NARA did virtually nothing to add records to the JFK Collection between 1998, when the ARRB closed, and 2017 when the release process was to end under the law. The judge declared that was not NARA's job. It was not the successor agency to the ARRB To do so he wrongly cited section 12 (a), which only ends language about admin matters when the boards closed and ignored section 12 (b) which requires NARA's archivist to certify to the President and Congress when all JFK records had been made available to the public. The MFF pointed to 12 (b) on appeal, which the judge acknowledged, but he offered no further response! How can the Archivist make such a certification without being part of the process, MFF asked? The judge's claim that NARA is not the successor agency to the ARRB is also contradicted by explicit language in several areas, from Congressional discussion while the bill was being considered to a MOU between NARA, the CIA, and the ARRB after the ARRB closed. Which the MFF"s brief details. Seeborg never addressed the threshhold question of exactly who is responsible for the work Congress envisioned remaining when the ARRB closed in '98, if not NARA. At the time of passage no one knew how much work would be left, but surely many expected it would be substantial, given the little had been accomplished up until then and and the obvious road blocks to releasing records in place. The judge's decision means no one was and is responsible, but that couldn't have Congress' intent. Reversing that error should open the way for real consideration of the many complaints about NARA's performance since the ARRB closed that the MFF is making The Act allows for postponing release of records, but only with a showing of *identifiable* harm to the public if such information were released. The MFF brief points out that means the specific harm must therefore be identified before postponement. But neither Trump or Biden has done so. Instead, they have merely issuing blanket claims that the harms exist to justify each postponement without identifying them. As I understand it, the MFF has asked for discovery to make their case about the records that belong in the Collection but are not currently included. Reversing Judge Seeborg's errors, including some I haven't mention, should help with that. https://www.maryferrell.org/wiki/files/jfkrecordslawsuit/mffvbiden_2024-08-24_plaintiffsReplyBrief.pdf Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
K K Lane Posted August 21 Share Posted August 21 Thx for this update. Morley has made a persuasive case that NARA-driven government disclosures on JFKA have been useful, but I maintain that only a motivated proactive effort from within the federal government will provide major advances in our JFKA understanding. By "motivated proactive effort" I mean someone at the top levels who has the authority and overt desire to re-create Church committee transparency on JFKA and related matters. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roger Odisio Posted August 21 Author Share Posted August 21 1 hour ago, K K Lane said: Thx for this update. Morley has made a persuasive case that NARA-driven government disclosures on JFKA have been useful, but I maintain that only a motivated proactive effort from within the federal government will provide major advances in our JFKA understanding. By "motivated proactive effort" I mean someone at the top levels who has the authority and overt desire to re-create Church committee transparency on JFKA and related matters. The JFK Act covers more than records held by govt agencies. The law is written in terms of the agencies but Congress delegated to the ARRB the task of defining "record". The board defined it as broadly as possible. A record is any information, no matter its form or who possesses it, that is relevant to understanding the JFKA. For example, that's why the Zapruder film is at NARA and why the Darnell and Wiegman films should be. There is lots of stuff out there that could advance understanding of the murder. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benjamin Cole Posted August 24 Share Posted August 24 Thanks for this update. This is the most important issue before the JFKA/RFK1A research community at this time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robert Morrow Posted August 24 Share Posted August 24 The United States Government is willing to FIGHT TO THE DEATH to not release THE MOST CRITICAL DOCUMENTS that they have pertaining to the JFK assassination. It looks like we have a CIA friendly judge carrying water for them (and the rest of the government): pretending the NARA was not a successor agency to the ARRB. I think the files the government really wants to keep secret are the George Johannides files because both he and Lee Harvey Oswald may have been involved in the same program to discredit the pro Castro Fair Play for Cuba Committee. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benjamin Cole Posted August 25 Share Posted August 25 14 hours ago, Robert Morrow said: The United States Government is willing to FIGHT TO THE DEATH to not release THE MOST CRITICAL DOCUMENTS that they have pertaining to the JFK assassination. It looks like we have a CIA friendly judge carrying water for them (and the rest of the government): pretending the NARA was not a successor agency to the ARRB. I think the files the government really wants to keep secret are the George Johannides files because both he and Lee Harvey Oswald may have been involved in the same program to discredit the pro Castro Fair Play for Cuba Committee. RM- Agreed...but we also don't know what we don't know. The remaining JFKA files, it can be reasonably be deduced, have the "hot stuff" in them. Ergo, the Biden/Harris Administration permanent snuff job. The JFKA/RFK1A research community has shown great skill in analyzing documents, and making deductions (OK, some over-zealousness, but still). We don't what is in the remaining JFK docs. We do know the government wants us not to know. A reasonable deduction is... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robert Morrow Posted August 25 Share Posted August 25 2 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said: RM- Agreed...but we also don't know what we don't know. The remaining JFKA files, it can be reasonably be deduced, have the "hot stuff" in them. Ergo, the Biden/Harris Administration permanent snuff job. The JFKA/RFK1A research community has shown great skill in analyzing documents, and making deductions (OK, some over-zealousness, but still). We don't what is in the remaining JFK docs. We do know the government wants us not to know. A reasonable deduction is... A reasonable deduction is... the withheld JFK files contain a hand grenade(s) with the pin pulled near the arse of the government. Whatever it is, it must be EXPLOSIVE! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benjamin Cole Posted August 26 Share Posted August 26 On 8/25/2024 at 9:26 AM, Robert Morrow said: A reasonable deduction is... the withheld JFK files contain a hand grenade(s) with the pin pulled near the arse of the government. Whatever it is, it must be EXPLOSIVE! Well, maybe. With 3,000 records darked (some say more) there could be enough fresh leads and confirmations to find out if Johannides and LHO were working together in New Orleans, and if LHO was in fact an intel-state asset in Russia. Maybe there is info on Alpha-66. Do you have any idea of there are connections between Alpha-66 and LHO? I would like to see a thread not on the "What" of the Biden Administration actions in suffocating the JFK Records Act, but the "Why?" The "protect sources and methods" angle is scarcely believable. Let's discard that answer. Was Biden an unwitting puppet? Was Biden threatened with incriminating or politically toxic information releases? Was Biden convinced the way Trump was convinced? Did Biden determine discretion was the better part of valor and not learn what was in the JFK Records? Or did Biden earnestly believe CIA disinformation story-lines that there "is nothing in the JFK Records" and let it go at that? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gil Jesus Posted August 27 Share Posted August 27 I'm wondering if there are documents connecting the CIA with people in Dallas who were in the orbit of Lee Harvey Oswald. People responsible for putting him in that building. People like Ruth Paine and Roy Truly. Is this what the CIA means when it says it's protecting sources ? It would be interesting to see those remaining files. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benjamin Cole Posted August 27 Share Posted August 27 22 minutes ago, Gil Jesus said: I'm wondering if there are documents connecting the CIA with people in Dallas who were in the orbit of Lee Harvey Oswald. People responsible for putting him in that building. People like Ruth Paine and Roy Truly. Is this what the CIA means when it says it's protecting sources ? It would be interesting to see those remaining files. Interesting. It took years before it was revealed that Clay Shaw just happened to be a CIA asset. Or additional docs on J Walton Moore, the CIA guy in Dallas. We know Moore linked Mohrenschildt to LHO. How about others, with Cuba ties? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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