Last Friday, President Trump made the following announcement:
I have decided not to block release of the CIA’s remaining JFK-assassination related records except for those records that directly implicate the CIA in the assassination, which will continue to remain secret.”
Okay, he didn’t really put it like that. But that’s the potential and likely import of his announcement, which actually read as follows:
Subject to the receipt of further information, I will be allowing, as President, the long blocked and classified JFK FILES to be opened.” (Italics added.)
The operative words, of course, are: “Subject to the receipt of further information….”
What is going on here?
Negotiations. The art of the deal. The CIA desperately does not want to show the American people its long-secret JFK-related records. It has asked Trump to continue keeping at least some of them secret notwithstanding the passage of more than 50 years since the Kennedy assassination.
Under long-established custom and tradition in Washington, D.C., when someone asks someone else for a favor, the person who is in a position to grant the favor demands something in return. That’s where the negotiations between Trump and the CIA come into play. Trump wants something in return. We don’t know what — maybe laying off on the Russia investigation — but his announcement last Friday is obviously part of the concluding steps of such negotiations.
What Trump has done with his announcement is send a clear message to the CIA: “Give me what I want and I’ll give you want you want. Otherwise, I will let all your cherished long-secret records relating to the JFK assassination be shown to the American people.”
Make no mistake about it: A…