Released JFK files reveal Social Security numbers of former staffers
Bettmann / Contributor
(WASHINGTON) — The Social Security numbers and other personal details of at least two former congressional staffers who investigated the assassination of President John F. Kennedy were revealed by this week’s release of declassified records ordered by President Donald Trump.
Joseph diGenova, 80, and Christopher Pyle, 86, both had their names, birth dates, birth places and Social Security numbers unmasked in the document released by the National Archives — potentially putting them at risk of identity theft and fraud.
The Washington Post spoke to both of the former staffers and ABC News confirmed that both men’s Social Security numbers were in the newly-published documents.
It is unclear how many other people whose Social Security numbers are in the documents and are also still alive. The Washington Post reported that data of more than 200 former congressional staffers and others was made public.
Of those, more than 80 people with birth dates between 1930 and 1952 — putting them in their 70s, 80s or 90s — also had their Social Security numbers and birth dates published.
Trump signed an executive order on Jan. 23 directing the release of all remaining records related to the assassination, saying it was in the “public interest” to do so.
The records were posted to the National Archives’ website on Tuesday, joining recently released records posted in 2023, 2022, 2021 and 2017-2018.
Tuesday’s initial release contained 1,123 records comprising 32,000 pages. A subsequent release on Tuesday night contained 1,059 records comprising 31,400 additional pages.
More than 60,000 pages related to the 1963 assassination were released. Many of the pages had been previously disclosed, but with redactions. Many, but not all, redactions have been removed.
The records were posted to the National Archives webpage under the headline “JFK Assassination Records — 2025 Documents Release.”
(CALIFORNIA) — A California man has agreed to pay more than $65,000 in restitution and faces up to a year in federal prison for operating a drone that collided with a firefighting aircraft during the early days of the Palisades Fire, prosecutors announced Friday.
Peter Akemann, 56, of Culver City, has agreed to plead guilty to one count of unsafe operation of an unmanned aircraft for the Jan. 9 drone collision, which damaged the Canadian “super scooper” and took it out of commission for several days amid the devastating fire, according to federal prosecutors in Los Angeles.
According to the plea agreement, filed Friday, Akemann admitted his reckless operation of the drone interfered with the firefighting aircraft’s operations and “posed an imminent safety hazard” to the two-person crew.
The impact of the collision caused an approximately 3-inch-by-6-inch hole in the aircraft’s left wing, prosecutors said. The aircraft, which is designed to scoop water from bodies of water and drop it on fires, was able to land safely and was taken out of service for approximately five days for repairs, prosecutors said.
“We’re in the largest wildfire ever to hit Southern California. We need all the planes that we can have at the time. And now we have one down for five days,” acting U.S. Attorney Joseph McNally said during a press briefing on Friday. “That has a real impact on operations.”
Investigators recovered parts of the damaged drone and were able to trace that to a specific drone, which led them to Akemann, prosecutors said.
Akemann launched the drone from the top of a parking garage in Santa Monica out of curiosity to observe the wildfire damage, but lost sight of it after it flew about 1.5 miles, according to McNally.
The Federal Aviation Administration had issued temporary flight restrictions at the time that prohibited drone operations near the Los Angeles County wildfires.
There is no evidence that the collision was intentional, according to FBI Assistant Director in Charge Akil Davis.
McNally said the message to the public is “deterrence.”
“If you fly a drone around wildfires and you do so recklessly, law enforcement is going to find you and we’re going to hold you accountable,” he said.
Akemann has not yet entered a guilty plea. He is expected to appear in court Friday afternoon.
“Mr. Akemann is deeply sorry for the mistake he made by flying a drone near the boundary of the Palisades fire area on January 9, 2025, and for the resulting accident,” his attorneys, Vicki Podberesky and Glen Jonas, said in a statement to ABC News. “He accepts responsibility for his grave error in judgment and is cooperating with the government in effort to make amends.”
As part of the plea agreement, Akemann has agreed to pay full restitution to the government of Quebec, which supplied the super scooper, and the company that repaired the plane — estimated to be at least $65,169.
He has also agreed to complete 150 hours of community service in support of the Southern California wildfire relief effort, prosecutors said.
The misdemeanor offense carries a prison sentence of up to one year in federal prison. Any prison sentence will ultimately be determined by a judge, McNally said.
“I’ll highlight the fact that he has agreed to plead guilty and accept responsibility, which I think is important here,” McNally said.
Akemann’s attorneys said there are a “number of mitigating factors” that will be brought up in court, including his “reliance on the DJI Drone’s geo fencing safeguard feature and the failure of that feature.”
The Palisades Fire ignited on Jan. 7 and has burned more than 23,400 acres in Los Angeles County. It is now 98% contained, according to Cal Fire. Nearly 8,000 structures are estimated to have been damaged or destroyed by the fire.
(SEATTLE) — President Donald Trump’s executive order challenging birthright citizenship will face its first legal test in a Seattle courtroom Thursday.
A federal judge will hear a request made by four Democratic-led states to issue a temporary restraining order against the executive order signed by Trump that purports to limit birthright citizenship to people who have at least one parent who is a United States citizen or permanent resident.
Trump’s executive order reinterpreting the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of birthright citizenship — long promised by Trump on the campaign trail — is expected to spark a lengthy legal challenge that could define the president’s sweeping immigration agenda.
Democratic attorneys general from 22 states and two cities have sued Trump over the executive order, and the president faces at least five separate lawsuits over the policy.
In addition to the hearing in Seattle, a federal judge in Maryland is holding a hearing by telephone on Thursday in a challenge brought by two nonprofit groups and five pregnant undocumented women.
U.S. District Judge John Coughenour — who was nominated to the bench by President Ronald Reagan in 1981 — scheduled Thursday’s in-person hearing in the case brought by the attorneys general of Arizona, Oregon, Washington and Illinois. In a federal complaint filed on Tuesday, the four attorneys general argued that Trump’s policy would unlawfully strip at least 150,000 newborn children each year of citizenship entitled to them by federal law and the 14th Amendment.
“The Plaintiff States will also suffer irreparable harm because thousands of children will be born within their borders but denied full participation and opportunity in American society,” the lawsuit says. “Absent a temporary restraining order, children born in the Plaintiff States will soon be rendered undocumented, subject to removal or detention, and many stateless.”
The lawsuit argues that enforcement of Trump’s executive order would cause irreparable harm to the children born from undocumented parents by preventing them from enjoying their right to “full participation and opportunity in American society.”
“They will lose their right to vote, serve on juries, and run for certain offices,” the complaint says. “And they will be placed into lifelong positions of instability and insecurity as part of a new underclass in the United States.”
Lawyers for the Department of Justice, now under new leadership, opposed the request for a temporary restraining order in a court filing Wednesday.
Taking effect next month, Trump’s executive order seeks to reinterpret the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of birthright citizenship by arguing a child born in the United States to an undocumented mother cannot receive citizenship unless his or her father is a citizen or green card holder.
While most countries confer a child’s citizenship based on their parents, the United States and more than two dozen countries, including Canada and Mexico, follow the principle of jus soli or “right of the soil.”
Following the Civil War, the United States codified jus soli through the passage of the 14th Amendment, repudiating the Supreme Court’s finding in Dred Scott v. Sanford that African Americans were ineligible for citizenship.
“President Trump and the federal government now seek to impose a modern version of Dred Scott. But nothing in the Constitution grants the President, federal agencies, or anyone else authority to impose conditions on the grant of citizenship to individuals born in the United States,” the states’ lawsuit argued.
The Supreme Court further enshrined birthright citizenship in 1898 when it found that the San Francisco-born son of Chinese immigrants was an American citizen despite the Chinese Exclusion Act restricting immigration from China and prohibiting Chinese Americans from becoming naturalized citizens.
By seeking to end birthright citizenship, Trump’s executive order centers on the same phrase within the 14th Amendment — “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” — that the Supreme Court considered in 1898. Trump’s executive order argues that text of the 14th Amendment excludes children born of parents who are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States, such as people who are unlawfully in the U.S.
While legal scholars have expressed skepticism about the legality of Trump’s executive order, the lawsuit could set the stage for a lengthy legal battle that ends up before the Supreme Court.
(NEW YORK) — The Trump administration has instructed New York City to end its congestion pricing program, the first of its kind in the nation, by March 21 in a newly released letter.
The Federal Highway Administration said the Metropolitan Transportation Authority must stop collecting tolls by that date to allow for an “orderly cessation.”
The letter is dated Feb. 20, a day after the U.S. Department of Transportation said it pulled federal approval of the plan following a review requested by President Donald Trump.
New York officials have said they will not turn off the tolls without a court order.
“We have said that you may have asked for orderly cessation, which was the phrase that came in the letter to us. I will propose something in the alternative — orderly resistance,” New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said during remarks before the MTA board on Wednesday.
The MTA said it is challenging the Trump administration’s reversal in federal court, seeking a declaratory judgment that the DOT’s move is not proper.
The congestion pricing plan, which launched on Jan. 5, charges passenger vehicles $9 to access Manhattan below 60th Street during peak hours as part of an effort to ease congestion and raise funds for the city’s public transit system. During peak hours, small trucks and charter buses are charged $14.40 and large trucks and tour buses pay $21.60.
Hochul called the program’s early success “genuine” and “extraordinary” in her remarks to the MTA board.
The toll generated nearly $50 million in revenue in its first month, the MTA said this week.
From Jan. 5 to Jan. 31, tolls from the congestion pricing program generated $48.66 million, with the net revenue for that period $37.5 million when taking into account expenses to run the program, the MTA said.
The program is on track to generate $500 million in net revenue by the end of this year, as initially projected, the MTA said.
Congestion has also “dropped dramatically” since the program went into effect, Hochul said last week.
ABC News’ Clara McMichael contributed to this report.
