Latest news with #TheJFKAssassination
Yahoo
26-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
JFK hearing revives cover-up talk; Geraldo, Ross Coulthart respond
(NewsNation) — A House panel hearing last week featured testimony calling into question the official explanation that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963. Geraldo Rivera and Ross Coulthart, two journalists who appear regularly on NewsNation, offer their take on whether there is cause for concern or whether skeptics are going down the same dead end. Wednesday's hearing of the Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets was the second devoted to the opaqueness surrounding Kennedy's death. Declassified: The JFK Assassination At the meeting, witnesses to the assassination or its immediate aftermath expressed doubts about the Warren Commission's conclusion, and lawmakers heard allegations about tainted medical files, fake X-rays and lost bullet fragments. Media veteran Rivera, a NewsNation correspondent-at-large, said it's simple enough for him: Oswald, an ex-Marine sharpshooter with an ax to grind, acted alone. 'Lee Harvey Oswald was a low-down, dirty communist,' he said. 'The only thing in his life he ever did well was the assassination. He was a marksman. He was a sharpshooter.' Rivera insists that if there were a viable alternative explanation, it would have surfaced long ago. 'If it had been something other than the Warren Commission finding — that Lee Harvey Oswald and Lee Harvey Oswald alone killed John Kennedy — we would know it by now,' he said. 'I am unconvinced by all this recent testimony. And it always seems to me that the congresspeople involved are always the most eager to get on TV, and they make news by outrageous or outlandish or unprovable claims.' Witnesses accuse CIA of obstructing JFK investigations Coulthart, host of the 'Reality Check' podcast, said the case is worth re-examining. He said he was intrigued by last week's testimony, including remarks from a surgeon at Parkland Memorial Hospital who received the mortally wounded Kennedy. Coulthart noted the physician said the president's wounds appeared as if they came from the front of Kennedy, not from behind, where Oswald was believed to be in the Texas Book Depository. 'I just think the media is locked into a cycle of denial, that it's such an incomprehensible thing to contemplate the possibility that a president was killed in a coup d'état in 1963, and that's what we're talking about,' Coulthart told 'NewsNation Prime' on Saturday. Coulthart said the CIA may still be withholding certain files in the Kennedy assassination. Earlier this year, the Trump administration ordered the release of thousands of documents on Kennedy's death, but many observers said there was little new information included and no smoking gun that would solidify a different premise. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
USA Today
01-04-2025
- Politics
- USA Today
JFK assassination hearing live updates: Oliver Stone to testify before lawmakers
JFK assassination hearing live updates: Oliver Stone to testify before lawmakers Show Caption Hide Caption Donald Trump releases remainder of JFK assassination files The final batch of files surrounding the assassination of John F Kennedy have been released under an executive order by US President Donald Trump. unbranded - Newsworthy The assassination of former President John F. Kennedy will take center stage at a House hearing on Tuesday, as a panel of witnesses testifies about the documents recently released on one of the most shocking moments in American history. However, multiple people expected to speak on Tuesday, including filmmaker Oliver Stone, have been critical of investigations and long-held findings about the assassination. Stone's 1991 film "JFK" faced harsh pushback from historians for its suggestions that Kennedy's death was the result of high-level conspiracies. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., the chair of the Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets, said Sunday lawmakers will hear about the value of the flood of documents released by the National Archives earlier this month about the shooting. Renewed attention on the assassination comes after President Donald Trump signed an executive order in January aimed at fully releasing government documents related to the assassinations of Kennedy, his brother and presidential candidate Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, D-N.Y., and civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr. Nothing in the files has changed the long-held findings that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in fatally shooting Kennedy on Nov. 22, 1963 while the then-president rode in a motorcade in Dallas. The other witnesses in Tuesday's hearing include author Jefferson Morley, the vice president of the Mary Ferrell Foundation, a non-profit that promotes access to historical government documents, and James DiEugenio, an author who has targeted investigations into Kennedy's assassination. Stone wrote the foreword to DiEugenio's book "The JFK Assassination." There may be even more information coming, as estimates said a total of 80,000 pages were expected to be published after a review by Justice Department lawyers. The National Archives' release page suggests more may be released as well: "As the records continue to be digitized, they will be posted to this page." But Alice L. George, a historian whose books include "The Assassination of John F. Kennedy," said government records were unlikely to resolve questions some still have. "I think there may continue to be more record releases," she said. "I seriously doubt that any will include great revelations. The Warren Commission report was done well, but it was done when many of the key players were alive. It's much harder to find the truth when most of the people involved are dead." – Reuters A lack of immediate bombshells doesn't surprise some experts. The National Archives collected the documents from other agencies ‒ like the CIA ‒ years ago, according to James Johnston, author of "Murder, Inc.: The CIA under John F. Kennedy." 'If it was going to embarrass the agency or tell a different story, they wouldn't have turned them over to the National Archives in the first place,' Johnston said. Fredrik Logevall, a Harvard history professor whose books include "JFK: Coming of Age in the American Century 1917-56," said in an email the new documents may help historians better understand the circumstances around the assassination. "It's valuable to get all the documentation out, ideally in unredacted form. But I don't expect dramatic new revelations that alters in some fundamental way our grasp of the event," he said. – Joel Shannon and Josh Meyer Looking to read the JFK files released earlier this month yourself? You can find them on the National Archives' website here. Most of the files are scans of documents, and some are blurred or have become faint or difficult to read in the decades since Kennedy's assassination. There are also photographs and sounds recordings, mostly from the 1960s. – Marina Pitofsky While an initial review of the papers didn't contain any shocking revelations, the documents do offer a window into the climate of fear at the time surrounding U.S. relations with the Soviet Union shortly after the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 nearly led to a nuclear war. Many of the documents reflected the work by investigators to learn more about assassin Lee Harvey Oswald's time in the Soviet Union and track his movements in the months leading up to Kennedy's assassination in Dallas. – Josh Meyer Contributing: Reuters
