Is Biden blocking the JFK assassination files over hidden bombshells?

Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington email Get our free Inside Washington email SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. That 1992 law signed by Mr Bush ­­— the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act — was enacted by Congress out of frustration that the Freedom of Information Act gave executive branch agencies too much leeway to withhold records related to the Kennedy assassination, even after three decades, and because congressional records accumulated by the House Select Committee on Assassinations during its probe of Kennedy’s death were not set to be made public until 2029. “If they don’t know we had technical surveillance back then, they might not know that we gained access to certain information that that actually still has relevance now … I’m talking about a small number of documents, but I’m not going to rule out that there could be legitimate reasons to withhold some of this information.” open image in gallery Jacqueline Kennedy watches as US District Judge Sarah Hughes administers the oath of office to President Lyndon Johnson Will President Biden allow records to remain secret beyond his December 2022 deadline? “As a result of this, you ended up with a whole bunch of records, that if they had nothing to do with JFK we wouldn’t even be having this conversation, because no one would be even entertaining the idea of releasing them because the intelligence agencies are extraordinarily protective … of anything that they view as revealing their sources and methods to doing anything,” Mr McClanahan said, offering the example of the CIA’s past reluctance to allow declassification of a document captured from Imperial Germany during World War I because it would have revealed a technique for making invisible ink that is a distant ancestor of a method currently utilised by the intelligence community. open image in gallery Most of the records the Central Intelligence Agency wants withheld will disappoint those who are holding out for the sort of bombshell that would show government involvement in Kennedy’s death “Unless you have a very strong willed president who will say: ‘I do not care because I am so pro-transparency’, they will defer to their intelligence people,” he said.