Trump orders attacks against Houthis in Yemen

(WASHINGTON) — Experts who’ve spent decades studying the assassination of President John F. Kennedy told ABC News Friday they are hopeful that President Donald Trump will see to the disclosure of government documents on the killing that have been withheld from the public.

But despite the president’s order Thursday directing a plan for “full and complete release” of the material, some prominent researchers are not holding their breath.

“This order is a good first step, but it has loopholes in it,” warns author Jefferson Morley, whose website, jfkfacts.org, says it seeks to “abolish the official secrecy” that surrounds the 1963 assassination.

Pointing to language in Trump’s order that calls for a “plan” for the release, Morley fears continued foot-dragging within the intelligence community over some 3,600 documents in the National Archives’ JFK collection that still contain redactions.

“These agencies have not been cooperative with the law, with Congress, or with anybody over the last 60 years,” Morley said. “That resistance to full disclosure is not going to stop because Trump issued an order.”

The order Trump signed Thursday directs a plan within 15 days for the “full and complete release” of JFK-related material, and within 45 days for information about the killings of Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr.

New York-based attorney Larry Schnapf, who has in the past sued the government to compel the release of JFK documents, says years of experience battling a reluctant national security apparatus inform his skepticism.

“We’re hoping this is going to be a mechanical plan,” Schnapf said. “But if they’re going to do a substantive [document-by-document] review, then it’s going to be a while before the records are released.”

Schnapf also worries that the current lack of confirmed Trump-appointees in key roles at the intelligence agencies could slow the disclosures.

“If [Trump] doesn’t get his people in within 15 days, I think we’re going to have an initial delay, anyway,” Schnapf said.

In 1992, Congress passed a law requiring full disclosure of the JFK documents by 2017. But the law also allowed for exceptions if the president certified that “identifiable harm” to national security would be done if the secrets were revealed. Even as they oversaw the release of tens of thousands of pages, both Donald Trump and Joe Biden yielded to concerns of the CIA, FBI and other agencies, that thousands more documents should remain redacted.

A December 2022 memo to the White House has the CIA’s chief data officer writing that “limited redactions” were still necessary to keep secret the names of CIA employees, intelligence assets, sources and methods still in use, as well as “still-classified covert action programs still in effect.”

Jefferson Morley calls that bunk.

“The fact that they’re using techniques today that they used in an operation involving Oswald — and therefore it should remain secret — that’s absurd,” Morley said.

Author Gerald Posner, who wrote the 1993 book, “Case Closed: Lee Harvey Oswald and the Assassination of JFK,” is less pessimistic than Morley and Schnapf about the timing of the releases.

“[Trump] doesn’t like to be humiliated or made to look as though there’s a limit on his power,” Posner said. “And if [the agencies] come back and want to hold onto stuff this time, they’re going to have a tougher road.”

Posner and the other experts agree that the CIA is likely to be embarrassed by the disclosures, since the redacted documents are expected to shine further light on the spy agency’s tracking of Lee Harvey Oswald as early as 1959 — surveillance that intensified in the months leading to Kennedy’s death as Oswald traveled to Mexico City with a plan to defect to Communist Cuba.

“In an ideal world, we would get to that bottom of that story by finding out more about the officers who had Oswald under surveillance, more about the CIA operations that enveloped Oswald as he made his way towards Dallas,” Morley said, calling the CIA’s files “key to the story.”

One key advocate for release aims to have a seat at Trump’s cabinet table, and is hoping to learn more from government records about the 1968 assassination of his father.

“The 60-year strategy of lies and secrecy, disinformation, censorship, and defamation employed by Intel officials to obscure and suppress troubling facts about JFK’s assassination has provided the playbook for a series of subsequent crises,” Robert F. Kennedy Junior said in a statement, pointing to the killings of RFK and MLK, the wars in Vietnam and Iraq, 9/11 and the government’s handling of Covid-19.

“[E]ach accelerated the subversion of our exemplary democracy by the Military/Medical Industrial Complex and pushed us further down the road toward totalitarianism,” Kennedy said.

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(WASHINGTON) — A federal judge signaled he will issue a temporary restraining order barring the Trump administration from freezing federal loans and grants, raising concerns the White House will try to enact the same policy described in the now-rescinded memo from the Office of Management and Budget.

District Judge John McConnell Jr. has not entered the temporary restraining order given the rapidly changing circumstances, but signaled he would sign an order proposed by the 22 state attorneys general who brought the case.

McConnell had harsh words for the Trump administration and justified his future order — despite the OMB’s change of policy — based on a social post by White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt.

“I think the breadth of the relief that plaintiffs are seeking is extraordinary,” argued Department of Justice attorney Daniel Schwei before McConnell cut him off.

“Respectfully, so was the breadth of the OMB directive,” McConnell said.

Earlier Wednesday, Donald Trump’s administration sent a memo rescinding its sweeping directive that sought to pause potentially trillions in loans, grants and financial assistance, according to a memo obtained by ABC News.

“OMB memorandum M-25-13 is rescinded,” the short memo from Matthew Vaeth, the acting director of the Office of Management and Budget, reads. “If you have questions about implementing the President’s Executive Orders, please contact your agency General Counsel.”

The new directive follows a tumultuous 48 hours for the White House, as states and local governments raised concerns that funding for health care, law enforcement, disaster aid and infrastructure spending could be paused or delayed during the expansive rollout of the policy.

Leavitt defended the policy on social media, saying Trump still plans to implement a funding freeze without specifying what mechanism the president plans to use.

“This is NOT a rescission of the federal funding freeze,” Leavitt posted on X. “It is simply a rescission of the OMB memo. Why? To end any confusion created by the court’s injunction. The President’s EO’s on federal funding remain in full force and effect and will be rigorously implemented.”

Amid the confusion, a federal judge on Tuesday in Washington, D.C., issued a stay of the policy through Monday as lawyers for the Department of Justice struggled to confirm the extent of the directive. The policy had been set to go into effect at 5 p.m. on Tuesday.

“Without this funding, Plaintiff States will be unable to provide certain essential benefits for residents, pay public employees, satisfy obligations, and carry on the important business of government,” 22 state attorneys general had said in the lawsuit challenging the policy Tuesday.

On Monday, the Office of Management and Budget ordered federal agencies to freeze any federal funding to activities that might be implicated by Trump’s executive orders, causing states, local governments and nonprofits to scramble to determine if their funding would be cut off. Less than 24 hours after the policy was revealed, the White House attempted to clarify the policy in a memo, saying programs that provide direct benefits to Americans — such as Social Security, Medicare and SNAP benefits — would be excluded from the freeze.

During the hearing Tuesday, the lawyer for the Department of Justice struggled to clarify exactly what would be affected.

“It seems like the federal government currently doesn’t actually know the full scope of the programs that are going to be subject to the pause. Is that correct?” U.S. District Judge Loren L. AliKhan asked.

“I can only speak for myself, which is just based on the limited time frame here, that I do not have a comprehensive list,” DOJ lawyer Daniel Schwei said, adding, “it just depends” on the type of program and funding source.

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

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(NEW YORK) — A federal judge has indefinitely adjourned New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ fraud criminal trial after last week’s request from the Department of Justice.

“In light of the Government’s motion and the representations of the parties during the conference, it is clear that trial in this matter will not go forward on April 21,” U.S. District Judge Dale Ho wrote Friday.

Ho also appointed a private attorney – Paul Clement of Clement & Murphy PLLC – to argue as amicus curiae against the government’s motion to dismiss the case.

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

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