WASHINGTON — House Republican lawmakers have established a new task force focusing on the declassification of government secrets, particularly details surrounding the assassinations of several prominent figures.
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., announced the Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets on Tuesday, which will be led by Florida Rep. Anna Paulina Luna. The group, which will operate under the Oversight Committee’s jurisdiction, will specifically focus on publishing materials related to federal government interests such as the 9/11 attacks, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the client list of Jeffrey Epstein, among other things.
“For too long, the American spirit has been dimmed by the veil of secrecy, by a government that has been too comfortable in the shadows, denying us the transparency we deserve,” Luna said. “This will no longer be a passport that makes bold promises only to fade into irrelevance or send strongly worded letters. This will be a relentless pursuit of truth and transparency and will not stop until the American people have the answers they deserve.”
Comer and Luna have already sent letters to the State Department, Energy Department and the CIA for documents related to COVID-19, they said on Tuesday. They’ve also contacted the Defense Department and the CIA for files related to 9/11 and the Justice Department related to Epstein.
Lawmakers will also push for the release of reports detailing the assassinations of key figures such as Martin Luther King, John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy. The pair has contacted the National Security Agency and CIA for records related to those deaths.
Those efforts come after President Donald Trump told national security agencies last month to develop plans to release government records, later signing an executive order that would require Attorney General Pam Bondi and the next director of national intelligence, who has not been confirmed yet, to plan for those releases.
Trump had previously promised during his first administration to release files related to John F. Kennedy’s assassination, although not all of them were made public during those four years. Congress passed a law in 1992 requiring those files to be released to the public by 2017 unless some files would undermine national security.
“This task force serves to build on President Trump’s actions,” Comer said. “For far too long, the American people have had reasonable questions of what their government, which they fund every day, keeps hidden about certain issues. And for far too long, the federal government has not answered these questions.”
Membership of the task force has not yet been determined, but Luna said she would be opening the panel to members of both parties. A timeline for investigations is not yet clear but Luna said a first hearing would be held in March.