Oct. 8 (UPI) — Two lawmakers and a former adviser to President Donald Trump are calling on the administration to release all remaining records related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
Rep. Walter Jones, R-N.C., introduced a resolution in the House that would call on President Donald Trump to allow the National Archive and Records Administration to release any remaining documents related to Kennedy’s killing in Dallas in 1963.
“To me, the tragedy that took place in Dallas continues to raise many questions that go unanswered,” Jones said in a release from his office. “After 54 years, there is no reason, for the sake of honesty and integrity in America, that the facts of the JFK assassination should not be made public.
A companion resolution was introduced in the Senate by Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa.
The evidence surrounding JFK’s assassination has long been fodder for conspiracy theorists who do not believe the conclusion reached in an 888-page report authored by then-Chief Justice Earl Warren, which said Kennedy’s killing was the work of a lone assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, who opened fire on Kennedy’s open-top limousine from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository.
Conspiracy theories — some of which were dismissed by the Warren Commission — still abound nearly 54 years after Kennedy’s death: A second, never-caught gunman positioned on a grassy knoll ahead of Kennedy’s limo actually fired the fatal shot; the mafia put a hit out on Kennedy for his administration’s crackdown on Cuba; the CIA killed or allowed Kennedy to be killed because of his failure to more aggressively target Cuban dictator Fidel Castro.
Joining Jones’ call for a full record release is Roger Stone, a Republican strategist who has had ties to Trump in the past but is not part of the administration. Stone, the author of a conspiracy book, The Man Who Killed Kennedy: The Case Against LBJ, called on Trump to release the records despite what Stone said is intense opposition by the CIA.
“I know CIA Director [Mike] Pompeo is urging the president to delay release of these records for another 25 years,” Stone said in a statement. “They must reflect badly on the CIA even though virtually everyone involved is long dead.”
The issue of still-withheld JFK records was nearly put to bed in 1992, when former President George H.W. Bush signed legislation ordering all JFK-related records to be released. The legislation contained a loophole, however. Records were ordered released unless “the strongest possible reasons counsel otherwise.” The decision over which documents to keep classified lies solely with each subsequent occupant of the Oval Office.
