Morley Tips Hat to Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn) re JFK Records

[Benjamin Cole]

One of the dons of the JFKA research community, Jeff Morley has been active in the efforts to open up the JFK Records. 

Representative Steven Cohen (D-Tenn) has also been active regarding the Records. 

Morley posted this yesterday: 

Rep. Steve Cohen Looks to Free Last of the JFK Files

Tennessee Democrat has a plan to remedy CIA's blown deadlines

JEFFERSON MORLEY SEP 5

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With a bipartisan investigation of the near-assassination of former PresidentTrump gearing up on Capitol Hill, Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) plans to introduce legislation to complete the historical record of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy once and for all. 

Cohen started drafting of legislation earlier this year, months before former president Trump promised to release all of the JFK files after receiving the endorsement of President Kennedy’s nephew, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. A nine-term liberal from Memphis, Cohen proudly displays in his office a photo of JFK that he took when he was ten years old. 

According to people familiar with his thinking, Cohen will call for creation of an independent civilian panel to complete the work of the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB), which declassified several million pages of JFK records in the 1990s. 

In 2022, Cohen wrote a letter to the Public Interest Declassification Review Board (PIDB), an Executive Branch agency that advises the president on secrecy issues, asking members to push for full JFK disclosure. He and Reps. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif), Tim Burchett (R-Tenn), and Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) also called on President Biden to release all the remaining JFK documents.

That has yet to happen. Portions of more than 3,400 records related to Kennedy’s assassination are still off limits to the public, according to the National Archives.

What’s Still Hidden

The redactions in these ancient documents can be significant. For example, a White House memo on JFK’s plans to reorganize the CIA out of existence is still heavily censored 61 years after it was written. The CIA wants to keep this information secret during an election year, not because disclosure would threaten “national security,” but because it would embarrass the CIA. 

The 1992 JFK Records Act mandated the release of all assassination-related records by October 2017. Now, seven years after that blown deadline, Biden’s June 2023 order, gives the CIA and National Security Agency the power to keep JFK secrets indefinitely. 

Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidate, has no known views on JFK records.

Accepting the endorsement of independent Robert Kennedy, former president Trump said he would release all the JFK file, if re-elected in November. In October 2017 Trump acquiesced to CIA demands for continuing secrecy around thousands of assassination-related files.

Cohen’s Bill

Rep. Cohen’s bill, still under review by the Hill’s legislative drafting office, would turn over declassification authority to an independent civilian review board, along the lines of the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB). The board, appointed by the National Archivist, declassified several million pages of JFK records in the 1990s, including significant revelations that undermined the official story of a “lone gunman. 

For example, Operation Northwoods, a sinister Pentagon-CIA “false flag” scheme exposed in 1997, can be understood as a template for the attack that took JFK’s life supposedly by a communist.

Cohen’s legislation has potentially broad appeal. Fully 70 percent of American favor full JFK disclosure and the support transcends party lines, according to a poll of 2022 midterm voters. Congress will meet for a brief session next month and return for a lame-duck session after Election Day, which is when the bill will be considered.

And the JFK story resonates with the events of 2024. Cohen’s legislation promises to wrest the last of the JFK files from the grip of the secretive agencies and put back them back in the hands of the American people. 

At a time when Congress is investigating the near-assassination of Donald Trump, the law has symbolic as well as practical power. Full disclosure around November 22, 1963 would underscore Congress’s commitment to a transparent and trustworthy investigation of July 13, 2024.

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