Tag: secrecy

WA superintendent threatens to cut funds for district that vows to tell parents about students’ gender identity

Washington’s Superintendent of Public Instruction is threatening to withhold funds from a school district that is refusing to hide students’ gender identities from parents.

Washington’s Democratic Superintendent of Public Instruction, Chris Reykdal, is claiming that the La Center School District’s decision to inform parents of how a student identifies in school discriminates against students and families regarding gender inclusivity and rights of queer and transgender students.

La Center Schools Superintendent Peter Rosenkranz told KATU he believes that the state’s policies leave parents out of the equation by requiring school staff to ask students their preferred pronouns rather than their parents.

Last month, Reykdal claimed in an interview, “It is quite simply inaccurate to say biologically that there are only boys and only girls,” in response to President Donald Trump’s Executive Order that there are only two genders.

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Denver mayor and staff used encryption app to discuss migrant crisis, then auto-deleted messages. Trump policies prompted move, says spokesperson

Denver Mayor Mike Johnston and 14 of his top advisors, appointees and lawyers nicknamed themselves “Strike Force” and communicated about the city’s migrant crisis through an end-to end encryption app, CBS News Colorado has learned. The app, Signal, proceeded to automatically delete their initial conversations.

A spokesperson for Johnston said the Signal messaging was prompted by President Trump and how his administration “could have significant impacts on how Denver operates.”

The use of such messaging apps by government officials has been controversial and viewed as a way to avoid public disclosure of government decision making. In Michigan, after state police leaders were found in 2021 to be using Signal on state-issued phones, state lawmakers outlawed the use of encrypted messaging on state phones.

“It’s unlawful and it’s breaking the law,” said Steven Zansberg, a Denver attorney who specializes in First Amendment and open records law, and reviewed some of the records obtained by CBS News Colorado.

Jeff Roberts, director of the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition, characterized what the CBS investigation found as an intentional effort to undermine Colorado’s open records law.

“This is not transparent,” said Roberts.

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Judicial Watch Files Suit Against DHS For Records On Trump Assassination Attempt In Butler, Pa.

Judicial Watch has announced a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for records related to security provided during President Donald Trump’s assassination attempt. 

On Tuesday, Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the DHS for records related to security provided for the July 13th, 2024, rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, during which there was an assassination attempt on Trump.

They stated that they have previously obtained records related to the event, including the Butler County District Attorney’s Office’s records on preparations for the rally and body-camera footage from the Butler Township police department. 

However, the group said that its efforts to obtain records and data from the federal government have gone unanswered.

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The crucial JFK file that was not released and still remains secret

Crucial information was missing from the JFK assassination files released by the Trump administration on Tuesday, according to an expert.

The transcript of the first conversation between president Lyndon Johnson and CIA Director John McCone after the 1963 assassination has still not been released to the public, author James Johnston told USA Today. 

The document could help answer questions about any possible involvement from Cuba in the Kennedy’s killing, since the president had famously tried to use the CIA to kill communist dictator Fidel Castro. 

McCone has previously been accused of keeping ‘incendiary’ information from the Warren Commission that probed the assassination, as reported by Politico. 

The sensitive information revolved around the existence of plots to assassinate Castro, which put the CIA ‘in cahoots with the mafia.’

Without this information, the Warren Commission never looked at whether Oswald could have had accomplices in Cuba or elsewhere who wanted JFK dead as retaliation for trying to kill Castro.

McCone’s cover-up was claimed to be ‘benign’ because he and other top CIA officials wanted the commission to focus on Lee Harvey Oswald, who they truly believed acted as a lone shooter. 

More than 63,000 pages of records related to the 1963 assassination of president Kennedy were released Tuesday following an order by President Donald Trump, many without the redactions that had confounded historians for years and helped fuel conspiracy theories.

The US National Archives and Records Administration posted to its website roughly 2,200 files containing the documents. 

They included typewritten reports and handwritten notes spanning decades, including details of a top CIA agent who claimed the deep state was responsible,  Oswald being a ‘poor shot’ and that Secret Service had been warned Kennedy would be killed in August, three months before the murder.

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Author and JFK Expert Reveals a Critical JFK File That Was Not Released to the Public and Still Remains a Secret

Questions remain regarding the assassination of JFK even after President Trump fulfilled one of his long-standing political promises to release the files.

As The Gateway Pundit reported, President Donald Trump ordered the release of approximately 1,123 PDF files of previously classified documents related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, fulfilling a long-standing promise to declassify all remaining records.

These files, part of the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection, are accessible online at the National Archives (JFK Release 2025) or in person at the National Archives at College Park, Maryland.

There were several highlights, especially concerning alleged JFK assassin Lee Harvey Oswald. The files reveal Oswald was reportedly considered a “poor shot” during his target practice in the USSR, was under surveillance by the CIA 59 days before the assassination, and was a spy.

The files also show that former CIA agent Gary Underhill claimed the agency was responsible for JFK’s assassination. He was later found dead in what was ruled a “suicide.” More shockingly, a man named Sergy Czornonoh reportedly knew that Oswald would be killed after assassinating Kennedy and that legendary civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. would also be assassinated. Czornonoh also allegedly knew in advance that Kennedy would be killed in Dallas.

But there remain unanswered questions, particularly surrounding the CIA and the man who succeeded Kennedy as president following the assassination: Lyndon Baines Johnson.

James Johnston, author of “Murder, Inc.: The CIA under John F. Kennedy,” explained to the USA Today revealed that a crucial document exists but has not been turned over to the National Archives. This paper concerns the first one-on-one conversation between President Lyndon Johnson and CIA Director John McCone, which occurred after Johnson assumed power following JFK’s assassination.

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JFK Assassination Records – 2025 Documents Release

In accordance with President Donald Trump’s directive of March 17, 2025, all records previously withheld for classification that are part of the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection are released. 

The National Archives has partnered with agencies across the federal government to comply with the President’s directive in support of Executive Order 14176. 

As of March 18, 2025, the records are available to access either online at this page or in person, via hard copy or on analog media formats, at the National Archives at College Park, Maryland. As the records continue to be digitized, they will be posted to this page.

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Trump’s promise to release JFK files sets off all-night scramble by DOJ’s National Security Division

The Justice Department’s National Security Division has been in a scramble trying to meet President Donald Trump’s promise on Monday to release declassified information from the JFK assassination investigation today.

Trump, during a visit Monday to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, announced the government would be releasing all the files on Kennedy’s assassination on Tuesday afternoon.

Less than half an hour after that announcement, the Justice Department’s office that handles foreign surveillance requests and other intelligence-related operations began to shift resources to focus on the task, sources said.

In an email just before 5 p.m. ET Monday, a senior official within DOJ’s Office of Intelligence said that even though the FBI had already conducted “an initial declassification review” of the documents, “all” of the attorneys in the operations section now had to provide “a second set of eyes” to help with this “urgent NSD-wide project.”

Eventually, however, it was other National Security Division attorneys who ended up having to help, sources said.

Attorneys from across the division were up throughout the night, into the early morning hours, each reading through as many as hundreds of pages of documents, sources said. Only prosecutors with an impending arrest or other imminent work did not have to help, sources said.

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Trump says JFK files will be released Tuesday without redactions

President Donald Trump announced on Monday at the Kennedy Center that the files regarding former President John F. Kennedy’s assassination will be released on Tuesday without redactions.

“We are tomorrow announcing and giving all of the Kennedy files,” Trump said. “So people have been waiting for decades for this, and I’ve instructed my people that are responsible, lots of different people, put together by Tulsi Gabbard, and that’s going to be released tomorrow.”

The release will happen Tuesday afternoon, The Daily Wire reported.

“We have a tremendous amount of paper. You’ve got a lot of reading. I don’t believe we’re going to redact anything. I said, just don’t redact. You can’t redact,” Trump added. “But we’re going to be releasing the JFK files, and that would be tomorrow.”

“It’s approximately 80,000 pages,” he said. “So it’s a lot of stuff, and you’ll make your own determination.”

Trump said that the documents will be released without summaries so the public and media could drawn their own conclusions.

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Trump says ALL JFK assassination files totaling over 80,000 pages will be released tomorrow

President Donald Trump told reporters that his administration will release 80,000 pages of unredacted JFK assassination files, terming the trove ‘interesting’ but giving little hint of what if anything it may add.

‘We are tomorrow announcing and giving all of the Kennedy files… So people have been waiting for decades for this,’ Trump told reporters during a two-hour visit to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

‘That’s going to be released tomorrow. We have a tremendous amount of paper. You’ve got a lot of reading.

‘I don’t believe we are are going to redact anything. I said just don’t redact. You can’t redact. But we’re going to be releasing the JFK files,’ Trump said. 

Trump spoke about releasing JFK files during his first campaign and term in office but thousands remained under seal. Then, he signed an executive order in January to declassify remaining files. 

He said they would come out ‘tomorrow afternoon.’

Asked if he had reviewed the document or would provide an executive summary, Trump allowed: ‘I’ve heard about them. It’s going to be very interesting.’ He said about 80,000 pages of material would come out. 

‘It’s a lot of stuff, and you’ll make your own determination,’ he said inside the Kennedy Center.

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