8 June, 2023 UPDATE: JFK Records Lawsuit

Courtesy of Bill Simpich and the Mary Ferrell Foundation:

On October 19, 2022, the Mary Ferrell Foundation, a non-profit archive with the internet’s largest collection of searchable JFK records, filed a lawsuit against President Biden and the National Archives for failing to implement the 1992 JFK Records Act. These failures have resulted in confusion, gaps in the records, over-classification, and outright denial of thousands of assassination-related files, five years after the law’s deadline for full disclosure.

On April 10, 2023, the MFF filed an amended complaint. The amended complaint highlights the Biden “Transparency Plans” and emphasizes that the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) should not be the main avenue for the release of additional assassination records. The JFK Records Act states at Section 2(a)(5) that the Act is “necessary” because FOIA “prevented the timely public disclosure” of JFK records.” Similarly, Section 2(a)(6) states that the Act is necessary because other procedures to declassify “national security information” has prevented the timely public disclosure of JFK records. The National Archives should be enforcing the JFK Records Act by forwarding well-founded public requests for additional records to the agencies that have them in their possession.

As of 8 June, 2023, a motion for injunctive relief has been filed.

Plaintiff asks the court to stay the enforcement of President Biden’s Transparency Plans – arguing that these plans would lock up some of the unreleased documents for decades to come.

Plaintiff asks the court to declare that NARA is the successor in function to ARRB, and that it has a duty to supplement the assassination records. (This was stated in a regulation issued by NARA in 2000 – now the agency is trying to say that the reg, “doesn’t say what it says.”)

Plaintiff asks the court to enforce the memorandum of understanding signed by the CIA, NARA and ARRB in 1998 to obtain additional assassination records from the CIA.

It is requested that NARA be required to enforce the JFK Act when seeking records from agencies, rather than referring researchers to use FOIA – described in the Act as an ineffective way to obtain assassination records.

As things stand – and things could change – the July 13 hearing in SF will address both the motion for relief and DOJ’s motion to dismiss the case.

Download the motion brief by clicking here: mffvbiden-motionforinjunctionetcfiled

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Bill Simpich serves on the Board of the AARC. He is a Civil Rights attorney, author of ground-breaking articles focusing on the hidden intricacies of the CIA, and a leading and insightful analyst of the intelligence files associated with Lee Harvey Oswald’s enigmatic episode in Mexico City seven weeks prior to President Kennedy’s assassination. Between August 2010 and January 2015 Bill produced 12 articles on the JFK case which became the backstory to his invaluable work, STATE SECRET: WIRETAPPING IN MEXICO CITY, DOUBLE AGENTS, AND THE FRAMING OF LEE OSWALD.

Read The Twelve Who Built the Oswald Legend by clicking HERE.