Oscar-winning director Oliver Stone, whose 1991 movie “JFK” portrayed President John F. Kennedy’s assassination because the work of a shadowy authorities conspiracy, referred to as Tuesday for a brand new congressional investigation of the killing throughout a listening to that aired conspiracy theories about it.
The freewheeling listening to of the Home Job Power on the Declassification of Federal Secrets and techniques, the place partisan grievances have been aired, adopted final month’s launch of 1000’s of pages of presidency paperwork associated to the assassination. The duty power’s Republican chair opened the proceedings by questioning the Warren Fee investigation’s conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in fatally taking pictures Kennedy as his motorcade completed a parade route in downtown Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963.
Students say the information that President Donald Trump ordered to be launched confirmed nothing undercutting the conclusion {that a} lone gunman killed Kennedy, and the declassified variations didn’t seem to include vital new revelations concerning the assassination, primarily based on a evaluate by CBS Information. Many paperwork have been beforehand launched however contained newly eliminated redactions, together with Social Safety numbers, angering individuals whose private info was disclosed.
Stone’s “JFK” was nominated for eight Oscars, together with greatest image, and received two. It grossed greater than $200 million however was additionally dogged by questions on its historic accuracy. Stone advised the committee that he believes many years of delays in releasing unredacted data had prevented “readability” about who killed JFK.
Stone additionally mentioned a brand new investigation “outdoors all political concerns” ought to start “on the scene of the crime” and reexamine the entire proof from the day of the assassination. Students and historians have concluded that there is robust proof that Oswald, a 24-year-old former Marine, acted alone in killing Kennedy.
Director Oliver Stone gestures to the place he says witnesses noticed a big wound on the again of President Kennedy’s head after his dying throughout a listening to of the Home Job Power on the Declassification of Federal Secrets and techniques on Capitol Hill, Tuesday, April 1, 2025, in Washington.
Mark Schiefelbein / AP
“Can we return to a world the place we are able to belief our authorities to degree with us, the individuals for which this authorities exists?” Stone mentioned. “That is our democracy. That is our presidency. It belongs to us.”
The duty power’s chair, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida, mentioned she thinks the federal authorities beneath earlier administrations had engaged in “stonewalling.”
The duty power additionally heard from a witness referred to as by Democrats who criticized the Trump administration’s dealing with of the latest JFK doc launch. John Davisson, senior counsel for the Washington-based Digital Privateness Info Heart, referred to as it “hurried” and prompt that the Nationwide Archives and Data Administration “merely ignored” procedures for safeguarding individuals’s privateness.
The duty power’s Democrats adopted up on his feedback by criticizing the Trump administration over a wide range of different points.
“What I discover humorous about this listening to is that the Republicans are right here relitigating whether or not CIA brokers lied 60 years in the past,” mentioned Rep. Jasmine Crockett, whose Texas district consists of a part of Dallas.
Crockett prompt that Congress ought to as an alternative delve deeper into revelations that prime nationwide safety officers mentioned delicate assault plans over a messaging app and mistakenly added a journalist to the group chat.
The final formal congressional investigation of Kennedy’s assassination took three years and resulted in 1978, when a Home committee issued a report concluding that the Soviet Union, Cuba, organized crime, the CIA and the FBI weren’t concerned, however Kennedy “most likely was assassinated on account of a conspiracy.” In 1976, a Senate committee mentioned it had not uncovered sufficient proof “to justify a conclusion that there was a conspiracy.”
The Warren Fee, appointed by Kennedy’s successor, President Lyndon B. Johnson, concluded that Oswald fired on Kennedy’s motorcade from a sniper’s perch on the sixth flooring of the Texas College Ebook Depository, the place Oswald labored. Police arrested Oswald inside 90 minutes, and two days later, Jack Ruby, a nightclub proprietor, shot Oswald throughout a jail switch broadcast on stay tv.
For Tuesday’s listening to, the duty power additionally invited Jefferson Morley and James DiEugenio, who’ve written books arguing for conspiracies behind the assassination. Morley is editor of the JFK Details weblog and vp of the Mary Ferrell Basis, a repository for information associated to the assassination.
Shortly after taking workplace in January, Mr. Trump took govt motion to ascertain a course of to declassify and launch any remaining paperwork associated to Kennedy’s killing, in addition to the assassinations of Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. The not too long ago launched paperwork about JFK’s assassination have been uploaded to a portal maintained by the Nationwide Archives, which could be discovered right here.
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