The Government Must Declassify Secrets and Let the American People Decide the Truth

Now more than ever, it appears that the institutions meant to uncover the truth about Nov. 22, 1963, were the very ones that buried it.

At a recent congressional hearing, stunning eyewitness testimony suggested President John F. Kennedy was killed by shots that Lee Harvey Oswald could not have possibly fired. Dr. Don Curtis, who assisted in the trauma room at Parkland Memorial Hospital, asserted that the fatal wounds he saw came from the front and not from the back, as the official Warren Commission Report declared.

History did not get the story wrong by accident. That was made clear by another witness. Douglas P. Horne of the 1990s Assassination Records Review Board testified about missing autopsy photos, altered film footage, a suspicious 90-minute gap in the chain of custody of JFK’s body, vanishing bullet fragments, and even the disappearance of the president’s brain.

A separate researcher on Congress’s 1970s House Select Committee on Assassinations described obstruction by the CIA when his team tried to investigate Oswald’s travel to Mexico City. Dan Hardway recalled an intelligence officer dismissing his authority, telling him, “You represent Congress. What the ‘F’ is that to the CIA? You’ll be gone in two years, and we’ll still be here.”

This routine has become all too familiar. The government hides and the public is left to piece together scraps of evidence in pursuit of the truth—from JFK to Jeffrey Epstein, from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma to Butler, Pennsylvania. Until Congress reforms the 1966 Freedom of Information Act and reclaims its authority, the cover-ups will continue, and so will the collapse of public trust.

FOIA was intended to guard the public against government secrecy. It granted citizens a path to demand records and empowered judges to enforce access. In reality, it has devolved into a legal maze that protects those concealing information rather than those pursuing the truth.

While investigating the Oklahoma City bombing, I witnessed the grueling FOIA battle of attorney Jesse Trentadue. He sought access to surveillance tapes the FBI had collected. Trentadue remains locked in that struggle 17 years later, driven by the belief that the tapes might solve the mystery of his brother Kenneth’s suspicious death in federal prison. Few others could withstand such an unbalanced contest.

Stories like this illustrate why public confidence in our institutions has effectively vanished. According to Gallup, Congressional approval is at a meager 26%.

In the absence of institutional resolve, only the innate hunger for justice among ordinary Americans keeps these high-profile cases alive. President Donald Trump recognized this widespread issue when he promised to declassify records during his reelection campaign. Responsibility now falls on those in power to act.

To succeed in obtaining records from the CIA, Congress’s Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets, led by Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., will require more than political support. It will need decisive action, including executive orders, subpoena power, and control over agency funding.

The Senate also has a critical role to play. Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, should establish a permanent task force to issue formal reports on unresolved federal investigations of political crimes. With such a respected figure at the helm, the task force could become a consistent counterbalance to federal opacity. A handful of detailed reports each year might help restore public faith in Washington’s willingness to confront hard realities.

This moment requires more than curiosity. It demands political courage. America has proven that it can survive tragedy, but it cannot continue to survive lies.

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