{"id":241926,"date":"2026-05-23T20:03:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-23T20:03:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/241926\/"},"modified":"2026-05-23T20:03:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-23T20:03:13","slug":"rfk-jr-rips-cia-for-reportedly-seizing-uncle-jfks-assassination-records","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/241926\/","title":{"rendered":"RFK Jr. rips CIA for reportedly ‘seizing’ uncle JFK’s assassination records"},"content":{"rendered":"

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. took aim at the CIA this week, blasting the agency for reportedly keeping a tranche of his uncle\u2019s assassination records under wraps for a \u201csinister\u201d reason he could neither identify nor justify\u00a0\u2014 but later insisted he didn\u2019t believe the claims.<\/p>\n

The Health and Human Services secretary spoke to The Post days after the CIA seized boxes of secret JFK documents from the office of outgoing Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard<\/a>, prompting furious outcry from influential House Republicans.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is yet another inexplicable move by the CIA that it\u2019s hard to put a face on it that\u2019s not sinister \u2013 because it\u2019s illegal,\u201d RFK told The Post in Iowa where he was promoting Make America Healthy Again legislation.<\/p>\n

HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy weighed in on JFK assassination records following a whistleblower claim that the CIA took boxes of records from Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard\u2019s office. Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, the JFK assassination document act said they had to release all of that stuff,\u201d he continued, referencing the John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992, which set a final records release date of 2025. President Trump signed an executive order days after retaking office calling for an end to the \u201cendless delays\u201d in the release.<\/p>\n

He came up empty when asked for the reasons behind the CIA\u2019s decades-long resistance to document releases.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know. I mean, obviously, there\u2019s something that they feel like that they don\u2019t want the public to read,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s very strange.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kennedy Jr., 72, endorsed a new push by House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) and Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) to try to get the agency to cough up any relevant material.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m grateful to them for doing that,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t even know if you need Congress, but I\u2019m glad that Congress responded,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

RFK Jr. quickly retracted the remarks in a Saturday post on X, saying he\u2019d \u201cimmediately investigated\u201d the claim that the CIA had taken back files concerning JFK, and \u201cdetermined the story was false.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reps for RFK Jr didn\u2019t respond to requests for further comment.<\/p>\n

A CIA spokesperson challenged any claim that it withheld or took material from the DNI during its declassification review.<\/p>\n

\u201cODNI has acknowledged in writing they made a mistake saying that boxes were seized and then were again mistaken in saying there were ever any boxes either missing or not made available. ODNI has acknowledged all boxes have been made available to them for more than a year,\u201d a CIA spokesperson told The Post.<\/p>\n

RFK Jr. called it an \u201cinexplicable move\u201d and blasted past CIA efforts to hold back documents. Bettmann Archive<\/p>\n

Lawmakers are demanding access to CIA files, including those dealing with MK-Ultra research. Bettmann Archive<\/p>\n

The White House said it \u201ccan confirm that all such relevant documents were either provided or made available for review by ODNI, and no documents were taken from their offices,\u201d a White House spokesperson said.<\/p>\n

RFK Jr\u2019s\u00a0initial\u00a0comments come after The Post reported in February on the\u00a0legal effort to force the government to reveal what it knows about 8mm assassination footage<\/a>\u00a0shot by Dallas A\/C repairman Orville Nix.<\/p>\n

Former CIA officer James Erdman delivered bombshell whistleblower testimony before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs last week that the CIA took 40 boxes of assassination records from Gabbard\u2019s office that he said were \u201cbeing processed for declassification.\u201d <\/p>\n

Erdman said they included documents from the CIA\u2019s previously secret MK-Ultra program, which dates to the 1950s-1970s \u2014 when the agency performed experiments on mind control and human behavior modification.<\/p>\n

RFK Jr. told a podcaster in 2024 that the CIA \u201cwas directly involved in my uncle\u2019s assassination, and in the 60-year cover-up,\u201d while speaking about MK-Ultra. <\/p>\n

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\u201cThe \u2018MK\u2019 stands for mind control, and the CIA had these programs at Fort Detrick [Army labs in Maryland], but at 220 universities around our country,\u201d he told the Shawn Ryan show in 2024. His office didn\u2019t say if his most recent comments had to do with MK-Ultra.<\/p>\n

Luna visited CIA headquarters at Langley last week, the agency confirmed, after she issued stern posts on X about the assassination records.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe CIA has 24 hours to return the documents to Tulsi Gabbard\u2019s office or else I will make a motion to issue a subpoena,\u201d she posted May 13. Luna and Comer then wrote CIA Director John Ratcliffe telling him to preserve assassination and MK-Ultra records.<\/p>\n

President Trump signed an executive order dealing with assassination records. Bettmann Archive<\/p>\n

CIA spokeswoman Liz Lyons accused the Senate panel of acting in \u201cbad faith\u201d by subpoenaing the witness without telling the agency, while DNI spokeswoman Olivia Coleman contradicted reports that the CIA had carried out a \u201craid\u201d to seize the material. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis is false \u2013 the CIA did not raid the DNI\u2019s office,\u201d Coleman wrote in response to a now-deleted posting.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s immaterial whether those documents were in her personal office. If those documents were taken away from her custody by CIA as she was preparing to declassify them, that\u2019s a problem,\u201d Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) fired back. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. took aim at the CIA this week, blasting the agency for reportedly keeping a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":241927,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[19808,9,11,10,87,21559,58],"class_list":["post-241926","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-jfk-assassination","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-politics","tag-robert-f-kennedy-jr","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241926","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=241926"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241926\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/241927"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=241926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=241926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=241926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}