As researchers of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination look ahead to an October release of currently classified government documents related to the murder, they raise concerns that a highly-charged political climate may put President Donald Trump at the same risk as President Kennedy.
The John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Act requires all government documents pertaining to the assassination of the 35th president be released by October 26, 2017.
A research group called the Citizens Against Political Assassination (CAPA) believes that as many as 3,600 documents remain undisclosed as of now. At a forum last week at the National Press Club, one leading researcher raised concerns about conflicts the 45th President of the United States already is having with what some term the “Deep State.”
Lawrence Schnapf, Chair of the Environmental Law Section of the New York Bar Association, has spent a number of years researching the Kennedy assassination and co-chairs the CAPA legal committee.
He calls the Warren Commission the “original fake news” organization because its conclusions later became the official government narrative, even though the commission refused to pursue information that might have cleared accused JFK assassin Lee Harvey Oswald.
The press this year, this election cycle … was clearly in a bubble … just like the press in 1963 was in a Cold War bunker.”
Schnapf criticizes government entities for classifying documents that shouldn’t be classified, and destroying others in order to avoid compliance with the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
He slams the Obama administration for its “culture of secrecy.” He notes that a number of Obama officials used private email because private emails are not subject to FOIA requests.
In comparing the current era with the Kennedy era, Schnapf asserts that Cuban refugees in the 1960’s were infiltrated by agents of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, just as today’s Middle Eastern refugees may harbor terrorists.
He cites the example of how the press misinterpreted candidate Trump’s remarks about Ted Cruz’ father being a possible associate of Oswald. Reporters hostile to Trump immediately turned his words into linking Cruz’s father to the assassination itself, which Trump never did.
The result of this thinking is that JFK researchers are seen as Hillary’s deplorables…The same things that happened in 1963 are happening now. The Cruz father story … this is a classic example of [how] the media has been misreporting the Kennedy assassination from day one.”
Clearly President Trump and key officials in the Intelligence Community are at odds over the President’s call for travel restrictions to help weed out bogus refugees.
The New York lawyer believes the government’s withholding of critical JFK-related documents for so many years until this year’s scheduled release mirrors the secrecy that still dominates in the Deep State.
The current controversy over whether or not the Obama administration ordered intelligence agencies to illegally monitor candidate Trump, his campaign team and the Trump transition team has heightened the tension between the President and the Deep State. While not expressly stating Trump is at risk of assassination, Schnapf certainly implies it.
I’m [not] really worried about whether you like Donald Trump or not, I’m concerned about where this is going. Everything is still in place.”