Tag: Supreme Court

Available on Kindle: Morley v. CIA: My Unfinished JFK Investigation

Morley v. CIA
(l. to r.) USA Today reporter Ed Bracken attorney James Lesar, and plaintiff Jefferson Morley

In 2003 I sued the Central Intelligence Agency with the help of Washington D.C. attorney James Lesar. Under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), We sought public release of the files of a deceased undercover officer who was involved in the events leading to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

In the new Kindle ebook, Morley v. CIA: My Unfinished JFK Investigation, I tell the story of the epic 16-year legal saga that followed. It’s a brisk read, funny, disturbing and revealing about where the rest of the JFK assassination story is hidden: in the CIA’s archives.

The hero of the story is Lesar, a dogged litigator taking on high-powered Justice Department lawyers. The villain is a judge named Brett Kavanaugh.

Read more here

Kavanaugh’s judicial activism on display

Brett Kavanaugh
Brett Kavanaugh, creative jurist

On the second day of the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearings, the Supreme Court nominee’s legal record is under close scrutiny. While far from is most important ruling, his last signed opinion as an appellate court judge provides a window into his judicial philosophy.

In a split decision on July 9, Kavanaugh’s vote decided my Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit for certain JFK assassination files. As fellow judge Karen Henderson pointed out in a stinging dissent, the majority decision ignored precedent and invented mandate.

Substantively, Kavanaugh’s decision undermined a key feature of FOIA law and strengthened the CIA and other agencies that want to keep embarrassing secrets out of the public record–even when they are more than 50 years old. That’s why I’m appealing the decision.

My day in court with Judge Kavanaugh: the subject was JFK files

Judge Brett Kavanaugh
Judge Brett Kavanaugh

On March 19 the DC Court of Appeals heard oral arguments in my FOIA lawsuit, Morley v CIA. In the absence of Senior Judge Karen Henderson, Judge Brett Kavanaugh presided.

Now Kavanaugh has been nominated for the Supreme Court, and his every word is being parsed.

The question before the court that day: Was the CIA obligated to pay my court costs for a long-running lawsuit about certain JFK assassination files held by the agency.

Click for the audio recording of the hearing. Kavanaugh is the first speaker you will hear, followed by my attorney Jim Lesar, a veteran FOIA litigator. …

JFK Facts podcast: Morley v. CIA, the James Angleton story, and other developments

Our sixth podcast. This week we discuss:

— Jim Lesar’s petition for a writ of certiorari in Morley v. CIA

— Jeff Morley responds to a question about the 2017 declassification and how that may impact CIA and JFK: The Secret Assassination Files

Dr. John Newman’s planned update to 1992’s JFK and Vietnam

— Diplomatic historians and the evolving understanding of JFK’s attitudes about imperialism and anti-colonial calls for independence throughout the third world

— Richard D. Mahoney’s JFK: Ordeal in Africa (1983) and The Kennedy Brothers (2011)

Betting on the Africans, Phillip E. Muehlenbeck

Kennedy, Johnson and the Nonaligned World, Robert Rakove

— Jeff Morley’s upcoming book on James Angleton

To download the podcast as an MP3: Click HERE; Place cursor on file; RIGHT click and select “Save Audio As.”

Got a question or a comment? Contact us at editor@jfkfacts.org and we’ll talk about it on the show.

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Jefferson Morley’s new ebook, CIA and JFK: The Secret Assassination Files, available on Amazon, provides the fullest account yet of the JFK records that the CIA is still concealing in 2016 and why they should be made public in October 2017.

CIA & JFK

Why I’m taking JFK to the Supreme Court

According to an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court filed this week in Washington, the language of the Freedom of Information Act is clear:

The court may assess against the United States reasonable attorney’s fees and other litigation costs reasonably incurred in any case under this section in which the complainant has substantially prevailed.

The Obama Justice Department doesn’t want to admit it but, in Morley v. CIA, yours truly substantially prevailed. Will the Supreme Court be interested?

It’s a long shot, but I try to think like Steph Curry; sometimes a long shot is worth taking.

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