The possibility that some "informants" and others involved in the official investigation of former President John F. Kennedy's 1963 assassination could still be alive might be the main reason federal agencies are dragging their feet in releasing classified documents in line with a 1992 law to make them public.
According to Politico, several secretive agencies including the CIA and FBI are still blocking the release of some 15,000 "classified" documents regarding the Nov. 22, 1963, assassination of Kennedy as he traveled through Dallas, Texas, in a presidential motorcade.
Recent correspondence between the National Archives and Records Administration and these agencies, obtained by the news outlet, show the agencies want the documents to remain classified because they contain names and personal information of "informants" in the investigation that are still living almost 60 years following Kennedy's killing.
"Many of those sources — now elderly, if not close to death — are foreigners living outside the United States, which means it would be more difficult for the American government to protect them from threats," the Politico report said. "The CIA has also withheld information in the documents that identifies the location of CIA stations and safehouses abroad, including several that have been in use continuously since Kennedy's death in 1963."
According to the report, these individuals might not be directly involved in the Kennedy case but might have been part of larger criminal and national security investigations, such as organized crime, during that era.
While not directly related, according to the report, the documents do include key figures in the case including the lone assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, and Dallas nightclub owner Jack Ruby, who shot and killed Oswald in the basement of Dallas police headquarters just days after the assassination.
In October, the Mary Ferrell Foundation, a nonprofit historical archive with the "largest collection of searchable JFK records" filed a lawsuit against the administration of President Joe Biden to comply with the 1992 law forcing the release of the documents still being held.
"These failures have resulted in confusion, gaps in the records, over-classification, and outright denial of thousands of assassination-related files, five years after the law's deadline for full disclosure," the organization posted on its website with a link to the complaint.
In March, Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., sent a letter to the Biden administration urging the release of the documents.
"We write to express and reiterate our concern regarding the delayed release of the more than 10,000 remaining partially redacted or entirely withheld documents related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy," the March letter said. "We urge you to release all remaining documents related to President Kennedy's assassination pursuant to and in accordance with the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992, also known as the 'JFK Act.'"
© 2023 Newsmax. All rights reserved.