“SUBJECT TO THE RECEIPT OF FURTHER INFORMATION”
by Sharon Rondeau
(Oct. 21, 2017) — On Saturday morning, President Donald J. Trump tweeted about a number of topics, one of which was the remaining sealed documents stemming from the investigation conducted into President John F. Kennedy’s assassination on November 22, 1963.
As was related here on Friday by P&E contributor, radio host and author Jeff Crouere, a congressional statute passed in 1992 protecting some 3,100 documents from public disclosure will expire on October 26.
As explained at the National Archives’ entry, the 1992 law allowed for the creation of the JFK Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB) “as an independent agency to re-examine for release the assassination-related records that federal agencies still regarded as too sensitive to open to the public.”
While approximately five million pages have been released and are available for viewing from the National Archives by appointment, the more than 3,000 pages believed to deal with Kennedy’s alleged assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, remained out of sight for “national security ” reasons.
In his tweet on the subject, Trump qualified his pledge to release the remaining documents with “Subject to the receipt of further information.”
The president also championed the passage of a budget bill by the Senate on Thursday, describing it as “a really big deal.” With the House out of session last week, it has yet to take up the measure. “MSM barely covered!” Trump remarked, referring to what he saw as the mainstream media’s lack of reportage on the development.
In actuality, CNN, USAToday, Reuters and The New York Times published articles on the passage of the bill.
Both earlier and later tweets touched upon the controversy which erupted after Rep. Frederica Wilson of Florida criticized the substance of Trump’s condolence call to a widow whose husband, Sgt. La David Terrence Johnson, was one of four U.S. Green Berets killed during an operation in Niger on October 4.
As to the gains in the stock market since he took office, Trump said, “Fake News doesn’t spent [sic] much time on this!”
Update, 10:09 a.m. EDT: In an interview with Infowars’ Owen Shroyer on Friday, Trump former advisor and longtime political operative Roger Stone said he spoke with the president on Thursday, urging him to release the JFK documents rather than wait “another 25 years.”
Stone also spoke with Alex Jones, the face of Infowars, contending that the CIA does not want the documents released. “I think he’s going to do the right thing,” Stone told Jones on Friday.
At approximately 10:18 a.m. EDT on Saturday, Stone tweeted:
Trump should release the unavailable files of Barack Hussein Obama, or whoever he is.
That would go a very long way toward making America great again.
What is the history of the JFK Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB), i. e., who has served on it and who is serving on it now? Who determines what records are sensitive and how is this communicated to the Board? And, are the records of the Board subject to FIOA requests?