Tuesday, April 1, 2025, PST | House Oversight Committee’s Task Force hearing reveals insights from over 62,000 newly declassified JFK assassination documents, spotlighting CIA and FBI roles.

On April 1, 2025, at 2:00 PM ET, the House Oversight Committee’s Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets convened in room HVC-210 of the Capitol Visitor Center, marking a pivotal moment in the decades-long quest to unravel the mysteries surrounding President John F. Kennedy’s assassination on November 22, 1963. Chaired by Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.), the hearing dissected a massive release of over 62,000 pages of documents, declassified on March 18, 2025, under an executive order signed by President Donald J. Trump in January 2025. This order, extending beyond JFK to include the assassinations of Senator Robert F. Kennedy and Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., mandated transparency plans completed by February 7 and March 9, 2025, respectively. The files, now part of the National Archives’ six-million-page JFK Assassination Records Collection, build on efforts sparked by the 1992 JFK Assassination Records Collection Act, spurred by public outcry following Oliver Stone’s 1991 film “JFK.”

The hearing featured four expert witnesses: filmmaker Oliver Stone, independent journalist Jefferson Morley, researcher James DiEugenio, and John Davisson, Senior Counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center. Their testimonies, rooted in the newly unredacted documents, spotlighted potential misconduct by the CIA and FBI, reigniting debates over whether intelligence agencies obscured or enabled the assassinations that defined mid-20th-century America.

Jefferson Morley’s CIA Bombshell

Jefferson Morley, a veteran JFK researcher, delivered the hearing’s most explosive testimony, asserting that three high-ranking CIA officers—Richard Helms (Director, 1966-1973), James Angleton (Counterintelligence Chief), and George Joannides (liaison to anti-Castro groups)—lied under oath about their knowledge of Lee Harvey Oswald, the alleged lone gunman. Drawing from a 185-page Oswald dossier and nine documents detailing Angleton’s covert operations, all unredacted in the March 18 release and cited in his written testimony, Morley argued these deceptions suggest CIA complicity in JFK’s death. He highlighted Helms’ 1964 Warren Commission testimony denying significant Oswald knowledge, contradicted by 12 FBI reports sent to the CIA between 1960 and 1963, two of which reached Angleton’s desk days before the assassination. Angleton, Morley noted, ran a mail surveillance program tracking Oswald since 1959, while Joannides obstructed the 1978 HSCA by denying his role in the AMSPELL program tied to Oswald’s Cuban contacts.

“The fact pattern emerging from the new JFK documents shows a deliberate effort by senior CIA officers to conceal their awareness of Oswald, raising the specter of institutional complicity in the assassination.”
— Jefferson Morley, Testimony to the House Oversight Committee, April 1, 2025

Morley urged Congress to secure Joannides’ personnel file and demand a public statement from CIA Director Ratcliffe on these discrepancies. His claims gained traction online when @LarsSchall posted on X at 4:58 AM PDT that day, alleging “a small clique in CIA counterintelligence was responsible for JFK’s assassination” (X post), a sentiment echoing Morley’s narrative and amplifying public speculation.

Declassified Documents: A Mixed Bag

The 62,000-page release offered a spectrum of insights, from peripheral curiosities to substantive clues. A 1968 INSCOM report (Manuel Marti Document) on Manuel Marti, a Puerto Rican U.S. Army private born in 1946, details a credit check from October 3, 1968, revealing no records—an odd inclusion with no clear JFK tie. Historians speculate it reflects the broad sweep of DOD files caught in the declassification net, though its relevance remains elusive.

Far more compelling is a 1978 HSCA interview (Gary Taylor Interview) with Gary Edward Taylor, a Dallas taxi driver who met Oswald and Marina in September 1962. Taylor painted Oswald as a dour, superficial figure who spoke vaguely of his Soviet life—working in a Minsk radio factory for 45 rubles a month—and spent hours writing a manuscript Taylor deemed poorly crafted. In May 1963, six months before the assassination, Taylor visited Marina at their Neely Street apartment in Oak Cliff, where she showed him a rifle hidden behind the door, its description too vague to confirm as the Mannlicher-Carcano later linked to JFK’s death. He observed bruises on Marina, suggesting abuse, and sensed her fear of Oswald.

Taylor’s account also spotlighted George de Mohrenschildt, a Russian émigré with intelligence ties who befriended Oswald. De Mohrenschildt’s aid—money, clothes, and time—struck Taylor as disproportionate for a man he called a “nobody,” especially given de Mohrenschildt’s own family obligations. Taylor recalled being asked by de Mohrenschildt and George Bouhe to teach Oswald to drive, a task he never completed. Most intriguingly, he claimed Alexandra de Mohrenschildt, his ex-wife, told him of a “confession” among George’s papers after his 1977 suicide—an unverified lead absent from the 2025 release but tantalizing for conspiracy theorists.

The third document, “SENSTUDY 75” (SENSTUDY 75 Files), stems from the 1975 Senate Select Committee (Church Committee) probe into FBI domestic intelligence. Spanning memos and a December 18, 1975, letter to Attorney General Edward H. Levi, it critiques the FBI’s vast data collection on “subversives” and “extremists,” its COINTELPRO disruptions (ended 1971), and political misuse by Presidents from Roosevelt to Nixon. Lacking statutory basis, the program relied on secret Presidential directives, prompting reform options: abolition, statutory limits, or oversight via an Inspector General or Congress. The SSC demanded MLK files from 1963-1968, particularly January-April 1968—preceding his April 4 assassination—alongside records on the Poor People’s Campaign and Memphis Sanitation Strike, suggesting parallels to JFK conspiracy narratives about intelligence overreach.

Historical Context and Hearing Dynamics

The 2025 release builds on prior efforts—2017-2023 under Trump, 2021-2023 under Biden—reflecting a public galvanized by Stone’s “JFK,” which prompted the 1992 Act. Stone’s April 1 testimony reiterated this cultural catalyst, linking his films to the Assassination Records Review Board’s 1990s findings, though he offered no new document analysis. DiEugenio, a conspiracy researcher, and Davisson, the minority witness, likely provided technical and legal depth, though their written statements (available online) lack detailed public summaries beyond Reuters’ March 31 note of DiEugenio’s participation.

News outlets like The New York Times, reporting March 18-19, praised the release’s scope—over 2,000 unredacted files—but noted no immediate smoking gun. Oswald’s monitored 1963 Mexico City trip, where he allegedly discussed killing Kennedy, surfaced as a key detail, aligning with Morley’s CIA focus. The hearing, wrapping up around 4:00 PM ET, left lawmakers and attendees grappling with unresolved threads: Did agency lies mask a conspiracy? Could de Mohrenschildt’s papers, if found, rewrite history?

Implications and Next Steps

The documents and testimony underscore systemic intelligence flaws—CIA obfuscation, FBI overreach—potentially tied to all three assassinations. Morley’s push for further CIA disclosure and SENSTUDY’s oversight proposals signal a path forward, while Taylor’s confession claim, though unproven, keeps de Mohrenschildt central to speculation. Historians caution that analyzing 62,000 pages will take years, yet Morley’s X post at 10:13 AM PDT on April 1—“on my way to testify” (X post)—and his earlier March 28 claim of “CIA negligence or complicity” suggest momentum for truth-seeking.

Against the Warren Commission’s 1964 lone-gunman conclusion, contested by many, this release—deemed “the most exciting since the 1990s”—offers granular insights (e.g., Oswald’s Soviet life, FBI MLK surveillance) but no definitive closure. Public pressure, fueled by X and archival access, may drive additional releases or probes, ensuring these assassinations remain under a microscope.

Readers can dive into the National Archives’ JFK collection, track X for real-time updates, or advocate for further declassification to connect the dots and uphold historical accountability.

Sources:

• House Oversight Committee Hearing – Official hearing details and witness list.
• Jefferson Morley Testimony – CIA officer allegations and document citations.
• Manuel Marti Document – 1968 credit check report.
• Gary Taylor Interview – 1978 HSCA Oswald account.
• SENSTUDY 75 Files – 1975 FBI intelligence probe with MLK focus.
• Executive Order – Trump’s January 2025 directive.
• National Archives JFK Collection – Primary repository for released files.
• Lars Schall X Post – CIA clique claim, April 1, 2025.
• Jefferson Morley X Post – Testimony announcement, April 1, 2025.
• New York Times – March 18 release coverage.