Tulsi Gabbard’s classified document “hunters” blindsided officials at the Central Intelligence Agency when they showed up unannounced at a warehouse storing troves of secret materials on the assassinations of Robert F. Kennedy, John F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King, Jr.
Officials acting on behalf of the director of national intelligence, who oversees the nation’s 17 intelligence agencies, wanted to take documents from the CIA archive and transport them to the National Archives to begin declassifying them, according to a report from Reuters.
The CIA, however, hadn’t been notified in advance, and none of the proper government protocols for transporting the documents and maintaining the chain of custody had been arranged.
The ODNI officials simply declared they were “on a mission” from Gabbard, leading to a shouting match at the entrance to the archives, sources told the news agency.
Gabbard’s officials presented a document stating that her office had legal authority to take the documents without the CIA’s approval, and warned that anyone who tried to stop them would be held accountable, according to the report.
Gabbard’s ODNI and the CIA told Reuters in a joint statement that the agencies “have and will continue working hand-in-hand to release and declassify documents of public interest and execute President Trump’s mission of restoring trust in the intelligence community.”
The Daily Beast has also reached out for comment.
In January, President Donald Trump ordered the release of classified documents concerning the 1963 killing of JFK, who was shot by Lee Harvey Oswald, and the 1968 assassinations of his brother RFK and King.
RFK’s son, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who serves as Trump’s secretary of health and human services, has long questioned whether the CIA might have been involved in the killing of his father and uncle, despite the agency’s denials.
Gabbard was given 15 days to put together a plan for the release of the JFK documents, and 45 days to compile the files related to RFK and King.
By early April, though, Trump’s 45-day deadline had passed and Gabbard’s team was frustrated by the slow progress, which ultimately led to the confrontation outside the CIA warehouse, sources told Reuters.
Eventually, arrangements were made to secure the documents and transport them using government vehicles to the National Archives Facility in College Park, Maryland. The effort took until 2 a.m. the next day.
At one point, Deputy Director of National Intelligence Amaryllis Fox Kennedy—who is RFK Jr.’s daughter-in-law—arrived in her minivan.
She didn’t have the right badge to access the warehouse but was waved in anyway, sources told Reuters.
Around the same period, Gabbard told Trump during an April 10 Cabinet meeting that she had sent “hunters” to scour the CIA and FBI archives for documents.
Between March and May of this year, the Trump administration released about 80,000 files related to JFK’s assassination and another 70,000 connected to RFK’s killing.
The new disclosures, however, have not led to any revelations challenging the official accounts of what happened.
In the meantime, the Trump administration has for months resisted releasing the investigative files related to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The release of those files could finally be imminent, however, after Congress voted this month to make the material public.
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