A faithful reader writes:
“A select congressional committee launched a vast investigation into issues of historic importance and constitutional scope. The committee necessarily relied on the CIA for crucial information. The committee published a massively documented report. The report is, in part, was critical of the performance of the agency. Subsequently, the committee learned that it had become the target of an intelligence operation by the agency during its investigation.”
“So the burgeoning scandal of the CIA’s operation against the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI )i is beginning to unfold.
[Have we seen this movie before]
“When [G. Robert Blakey], the former Chief Counsel for the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA), stated publicly years ago that the same agency had engaged in deceptive practices aimed at the HSCA during its investigation in the late 1970s, where was the outrage and action by the Congress that had been targeted?
“(The HSCA had been long ago dissolved by the time the intelligence operation against it was uncovered.)
“Blakey, now emeritus professor of law, has suggested that significant investigative issues and, potentially, conclusions of the HSCA could have been compromised by the CIA’s actions.
Same as it ever was
“As a recent article by the NY Times about the current flap phrased it:
“The extraordinary battle [between the SSCI and the CIA] has created an unprecedented breakdown in relations between the spy agency and its congressional overseers and raises significant implications for the separation of powers between the legislative and executive branches.”
“Will this new breach of the separation of powers be swept under the carpet?
“The Senate Committee is now asking how the CIA learned that committee staffers obtained access to the internal CIA report. It appears to the SSCI that the CIA conducted some form of surveillance on the committee (i.e., gathered intelligence on the SSCI’s investigation).
“Let’s hope all of this gets sorted out in public.
“Is the CIA prohibited from conducting ANY operations on US soil (setting aside how exceptions for terrorist acts by foreigners), much less against a Senate committee?
“If the CIA has a concerned about a “security breach,” should the CIA be required to ask the Justice Department whether a subpoena may be issued to investigate the Senate?
“The confrontation between the SSCI and CIA is a current symptom of concerns that were expressed when the CIA was founded, and reiterated by former President Harry Truman on December 22, 1963.
Again has anyone who has researched the JFK assassination suprised by this further James Brennan immediately denied it BUT he has also been caught lying to congress before as well!!!
I tend to agree with Edward Snowden’s appraisal of Feinstein’s angry statements on the Senate floor:
“It’s clear the CIA was trying to play ‘keep away’ with documents relevant to an investigation by their overseers in Congress, and that’s a serious constitutional concern.”
“But it’s equally if not more concerning that we’re seeing another ‘Merkel effect,’ where an elected official does not care at all that the rights of millions of ordinary citizens are violated by our spies, but suddenly it’s a scandal when a politician finds out the same thing happens to them.”
And since there appears to be early bi-partisan support to investigate the CIA in this matter, maybe they could also require they release the records around the assassination of a sitting president that they have kept from release for 50 years. That’s an even bigger constitutional issue in my book.
The CIA and OSWALD consume way too much bandwidth. They are red herrings. They serve only to take the eye off the ball. They are one of the main reasons this case has not bee solved in 50 years.
As I said before, the purpose of the “research” community is to take your eye off the ball. To ensure that the truth does not come to light.
Mike,
I believe you are correct here. Oswald and the CIA are distractions.
The research community has presented many purported but disputable facts. I do not dismiss the research community wholesale.
Please tell me or us your idea of the assassination.
I have an open mind.
As I said before if you want to know who was responsible for the assassination of JFK you have to figure out who Jack Ruby was talking about when he said the following…
“Everything pertaining to what is happening will never come to the surface…
The world will never know the true facts of what occurred.. I am the only person in the background that knows the truth pertaining to my circumstance…
The people had so much to gain and such a material motive to put me in the position I’m in will never let the true facts come above board to the world”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dLupbqmtUU
The simple fact is that the people responsible for the assassination made several very critical and obvious mistakes. The “research” community spends a lot of time steering people away from that area of the case.
If J.J. Angleton clearly established the CIA mindset: “It is inconceivable that a secret arm of the government has to comply with all the overt orders of the government,” it’s not surprising that the CIA didn’t care about the trias politica principle or separation of powers.