Lawmakers
Push Trump to Release JFK Assassination Files
Bipartisan
group introduce resolutions ahead of October deadline
October
2017'
Senior
lawmakers are calling on President Donald Trump to allow the release of
remaining government records on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
Resolutions
introduced in the House and Senate would call on the president to allow release
of documents held by the National Archives and Records Administration, and for
the Archives to work to meet a statutory deadline that arrives later in
October.
The deadline
occurs because it will be the 25th anniversary of the signing of
the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act.
The
leaders of the Senate resolution are Judiciary Chairman Charles E. Grassley of
Iowa and Democratic Sen. Patrick J. Leahy of
Vermont, who is a former chairman of the committee.
“The
assassination of President Kennedy was one of the most shocking and tragic
events in our nation’s history,” Leahy said in a statement. “Americans have the
right to know what our government knows. Transparency is crucial for our
country to fully reckon with this national tragedy, and that is the purpose of
these resolutions.”
Grassley
expressed a similar sentiment in his statement.
“Transparency
in government is critical not only to ensuring accountability; it’s also
essential to understanding our nation’s history. The assassination of President
Kennedy occurred at a pivotal time for our nation, and nearly 54 years later,
we are still learning the details of how our government responded and what it
may have known beforehand. Americans deserve a full picture of what happened
that fateful day in November 1963,” Grassley said.
North
Carolina Republican Rep. Walter B. Jones and
New York Democratic Rep. Louise M. Slaughter are
leading the House versions of the resolutions.
The
Kennedy assassination and related conspiracy theories made an unexpected
appearance in the chaos of the 2016 presidential race.
Trump
made a bizarre
accusation highlighting the National Enquirer’s publication of a
photo the tabloid purported to be of the father of campaign rival and
Texas GOP Sen. Ted Cruz with
Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald.
“To me,
the tragedy that took place in Dallas continues to raise many questions that go
unanswered,” Jones said in a statement. “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. Virgil once said, ‘Evil is nourished
and grows by concealment.’ It’s time to reveal what happened that awful
afternoon in 1963.”
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