Congressman Cohen Leads Letter Seeking Release of Remaining Kennedy Assassination Records
Deadline for compliance has long passed
MEMPHIS – Congressman Steve Cohen (TN-09) and Congresswoman Anna Eshoo (CA-18) today led a letter to the Public Interest Declassification Board seeking release of the remaining 14,000 documents associated with the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy. They note that the public is skeptical about the official version of events and that the documents’ release would help restore confidence through transparency. The most recent deadline for compliance with the document-release requirements of the 1992 JFK Assassination Records Collection Act was 2021. The letter was also signed by Congressmen Jamie Raskin (MD-8) and Tim Burchett (TN-2).
Congressman Cohen made the following statement:
“The time is long past now. This is an unacceptable delay and the public wants this information. It is their information. It is their government and it was our president who was assassinated. Many of us experienced the horror and sadness of that fateful November 22, 1963 and thereafter. We don’t want the government to continue to put this off until we are all deceased and nobody truly cares.”
The letter reads in part:
“When Congress unanimously enacted the JFK Act, it gave notice to federal agencies that documents should be processed and released, if not subject to an exemption, by October 26, 2017. Although former President Trump extended this deadline to April 26, 2018, and then October 26, 2021, agencies are still claiming they need more time to process and release documents, particularly because of the burden of the pandemic. These extensions, however, have given the relevant federal agencies an extra two and a half years prior to the COVID-19 pandemic and two and a half years during the pandemic to process, evaluate, and release the relevant records. Given the initial 25-year timeline and these recent extensions, it is unacceptable to use the pandemic as a reason to further delay the release of these documents.”
See the entire letter here.
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