Donald Trump and the JFK files

Will Trump release the rest of the files if he is elected in November?

Note to readers: This article originally appeared on BMAC, but I decided to post it here on Substack as well rather than just keep it exclusive to BMAC. A different topic related to Trump than the debate, but one I find very interesting.

I was getting my usual fill of celebrity trash, lies, and plagiarized stories at the Daily Mail a few days ago, and what did I find? An article about Trump promising to release the rest of the JFK files:

Former President Donald Trump pledged to release all the assassination files on President John F. Kennedy should he be reelected in November.

'This time I'm just going to do it,' Trump promised during a taping of an episode of the All-In podcast, which was released Thursday.

The former president and presumptive Republican nominee was asked by co-host Chamath Palihapitiya what was in the JFK files that Trump didn't release publicly during his first term.

The former president said he was encouraged to keep some of the information on the Kennedy assassination secret - and then made a bold claim regarding who was responsible for any cover-up.

'Well, this wasn't CIA that asked me, but I think CIA was probably behind it,' Trump said. 'They wouldn't preferred that I not release the rest of it.'

Before I get into my other thoughts about this, I want to point out the paradox of Donald Trump when it comes to these things. On one hand, he regularly takes shots at the Deep State (and they are justified too), but on the other hand, he listens to somebody who is likely a part of the Deep State when it comes to the JFK assassination files.

This has always been part of Trump's problem: he tends to go with advice from the last person he spoke to about an issue or problem. In this case, he likely went with whoever talked to him last about releasing all the JFK files.

Here is my problem with not releasing all of it: JFK has been dead for more than 60 years. The Soviet Union died in 1990, so it too has been gone for a very long time. The sources of information, agents, etc. are all likely dead of old age or retired a long time ago. Methods of obtaining information have changed considerably over the last 60 years.

So I'm forced to ask: Why not just release all the JFK files and get it over with? Given what I stated in the paragraph above, what could possibly justify keeping any of it a secret at this point? So much time has passed that none of the arguments I've seen can possibly justify any further secrecy around JFK's murder.

Trump and the "great people" who rolled him

Trump goes on to be more specific about why he didn't release all of it:

Some 19,000 records were released by the National Archives that same month.

'I actually did do it. I released a lot, as you know, but when it came to the whole thing, I was hit by some people that work for me, who are great people that you would respect. They asked me not to do it,' Trump recalled.

'And I'm saying, "Why? Tell my why?" and they said, "Sir, I think it needs a little more time,"' the ex-president continued. 

'And I released a lot, but I said, if they feel so strongly, I respect the people, and would have done that again,' he said.

He then promised, if reelected, he'd release the rest of the Kennedy files. 

'It's going to be done early on,' he added. 'A lot of people want to see that and whatever it may say - I won't say it, I have an idea - but whatever it is it will be very interesting for people to see and we're going to have to learn from it.' 

Okay, who are these "great people" we should all respect? This is vintage Trump; he always says "so-and-so is a great person" or "they are great people." Sorry, but I'm not buying it. I wrote off the entire federal government a long time ago, and I don't think there is anybody in it that I would consider to be a "great person."

And what exactly does "Sir, I think it needs a little more time" even mean? Another four years? What could be in there that is still so important that it couldn't have been released four years ago?

I think whoever Trump talked to just wanted to roll Trump (and it worked), so that the information would remain concealed from the public indefinitely. I think they figured once Trump was out of office, no other president would bother or care about releasing it. They obviously didn't think Trump would be back for a second term, so they only needed to get him to agree to put it off for a while, and then when he was out of office, that would be the end of it for a very long time.

In the first part of the article, Trump says it wasn't the CIA who asked him not to release the rest of the files, which tells me that it was, indeed, the CIA. Who else would have a motive to keep the rest of it secret for another who-knows-how-many years?

The FBI was also likely involved in blocking the final release of all the files. That organization has been rotten and corrupt, going all the way back to its founding. I don't doubt that there's some very dirty laundry about the FBI in those files that it does not want released.

Yes, it was the CIA who rolled Trump

I did some searching and found an article from Reuters that had some interesting tidbits from back in 2017, and it seems the CIA Director at that time, Mike Pompeo, was involved with withholding some of the files:

In a memo to government agency heads, Trump said the American people deserved as much access as possible to the records.

"Therefore, I am ordering today that the veil finally be lifted," he wrote, adding that he had no choice but to accept the requested redactions for now.

A Central Intelligence Agency spokesman told Reuters that every single one of approximately 18,000 remaining CIA records in the collection would ultimately be released, with just 1 percent of the material left redacted.

CIA Director Mike Pompeo was a lead advocate in arguing to the White House for keeping some materials secret, one senior administration official said.

While Kennedy was killed over half a century ago, the document file included material from investigations during the 1970s through the 1990s. Intelligence and law enforcement officials argued their release could thus put at risk some more recent “law enforcement equities” and other materials that still have relevance, the official said.

So the justification seems to be about material from the 1970s and 1990s. I repeat what I said before: What could possibly justify caring about material from an investigation from those time periods? 1970 was 53 years ago, and 1990 was 33 years ago. Exactly what "law enforcement equities" could possibly still be relevant in 2024? It just sounds like more excuses by the CIA to try to keep their crime covered up for as long as possible.

The CIA and the Mafia killed John Kennedy

And yes, I believe it was the CIA that did it, in conjunction with the mafia. Back then, the mafia still had a lot of power and reach, and they were furious that Bobby Kennedy was using the power of the federal government to go after them. The mafia and the CIA both had motives and means to kill Kennedy. The mafia was also connected to the CIA on other things, so a partnership between the two to get rid of Kennedy makes perfect sense.

Remember that Kennedy pissed off the CIA with the Bay of Pigs fiasco. The CIA had wanted to get rid of Castro, and the Bay of Pigs operation was bungled when Kennedy refused to order air support. The CIA likely hated Kennedy for ruining their best hope to get rid of Castro when his power was still shaky in Cuba. It was a spectacular failure, and all the CIA's plotting and plans came to absolutely nothing. Castro survived as leader of Cuba for many years, and long outlived Kennedy and other presidents.

Of course, some of the blame for the assassination also falls on JFK himself for being stupid enough to ride around in an open-air car with tall buildings all around him that had not been properly secured. He had to have known that he had serious enemies. If it had been me, I would have done my damnedest to make sure that I made it as hard as possible for someone to kill me. How hard would it have been to have a car with a bullet proof roof brought to Dallas?

What will Trump do if he is reelected?

Will Trump actually go through with it this time, if he wins? I have no idea. They rolled him last time, so they might do it again. Or perhaps, after all the lawfare shit he's been through, he'll tell them to go screw themselves and just do a big file dump on the Internet.

What do you guys think? Will Trump keep his word if he gets reelected? Take the poll, then tell me your in the comments.

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