Government releases thousands of declassified records related to JFK assassination

(WASHINGTON) —  A former top FEMA official who was removed as part of the political blowback over payments to New York City for housing migrants in what critics called “luxury hotels” has sued the Trump administration, alleging she was “unlawfully terminated from her position” without due process.

Mary Comans, who served as the FEMA’s chief financial officer since 2017, claims in the suit that her firing led to her being “falsely condemned online” by prominent individuals including tech billionaire Elon Musk, who has been overseeing government cost-cutting measures as the head of the newly formed Department of Government Efficiency.

Comans’ lawsuit, filed in the District of Columbia on Tuesday, claims she was terminated “without any warning.” The suit says the government “failed to undertake any process to enable Ms. Comans to appropriately respond” to the allegations, and then put out a press release that she claims was in violation of the privacy act.

“Additionally, the defendants falsely, deliberately, and publicly portrayed Ms. Comans’ actions in such a manner that third parties have asserted her conduct to have been criminal, which is defamation per se, thereby further contributing to the damages she has suffered,” the filing states.

The lawsuit says the press release led to her action being “widely, publicly, and falsely condemned” by online influencers including Musk. The lawsuit includes a screenshot of one of Musk’s tweets replying to a post about Comans, in which he wrote she had committed “A criminal action.”

“Prior to her termination, Ms. Comans was an exemplary employee with absolutely no disciplinary history and had received “Achieved Excellence” ratings for every year that she served as an SES,” the filing states.

Comans has asked a judge for a declaration that DHS and FEMA’s actions were illegal, and has requested monetary damages.

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(WASHINGTON) — 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.

A Justice Department spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment from ABC News.

In promising the release of JFK files today, Trump said Monday that there is “a tremendous amount of paper.”

“You’ve got a lot of reading,” he said. “I don’t believe we’re going to redact anything. I said, ‘Just don’t redact. You can’t redact.'”

Trump in January signed an executive order directing the “full and complete release of records relating to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy” in order to end the decades-long wait for the release of the government’s secret files on Kennedy’s 1963 assassination.

ABC News’ Hannah Demissie and Molly Nagle contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — Enrique Tarrio, the former chairman of the Proud Boys and who was recently pardoned by President Donald Trump, was arrested at the U.S. Capitol on Friday, according to authorities.

Tarrio, according to the U.S. Capitol Police, allegedly struck a woman’s phone and arm when she allegedly put a phone near his face after a press conference wrapped up on Capitol grounds.

Tarrio was sentenced in September 2023 for his conviction on seditious conspiracy and given the longest sentence of all of the convicted Jan. 6 rioters, though he was not at the Capitol on Jan. 6.

During his sentencing, prosecutors pointed to a nine-page strategic plan to “storm” government buildings in Washington on Jan. 6 that was found in Tarrio’s possession after the riot, as well as violent rhetoric they say he routinely used in messages with other members of the group about what they would do if Congress moved forward in certifying President Joe Biden’s election win.

Tarrio was notably sentenced to the longest term of imprisonment among all of the nearly 1,600 individuals charged in connection with the attack.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

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