David S. Ferriero Arhivist of the United States
Archivist of the United States (AOTUS) David Ferriero and the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) are being sued on civil court over their refusal to release Fierro's letters of recommendations to Presidents Trump and Biden before they decided to continually delay the release of JFK assassination records.
After continually promising to release all of the records, Trump, at the very last minute on the legal deadline October 26th 2017, cow towed to the CIA, his chief of staff Gen. John Kelly USMC and apparently Fierro to continue to withhold records for three years, until October 26, 2021.
Five days before that deadline, Biden, citing Ferrier's COVID excuse, again delayed their release until Thursday, December 15, 2022, though saying there will be another release this December 15, 2021, and ordering Fierro to digitize the entire JFK Collection at NARA and put it on line.
A group of lawyers have been meeting in conference calls weekly for months, and calling themselves the JFK Act Legal Task Force, filed the first of two legal actions on Monday.
Larry Schnapf, A NYC environmental attorney, Mark Zaid, who has made a name for himself representing military and intelligence whistle blowers, and assisted by San Francisco defense attorney, prepared the 11 page suit and are preparing another that will be filed in court in November.
While this first suit refers specifically to Fierro's letters to the president, that apparently recommend continued withholding of the records, such internal communications like phone calls, emails and letters that discuss potential action are with held under a deliberative clause, though the lawyers rightfully argue these letters fall under the JFK Act itself and are assassination records.
Preview attachment Schnapf v. NARA Complaint-FILED10.25.21.pdf
The AOTUS is a blogger, who promotes himself as an advocate of openness.
AOTUS – The Blog of the Archivist of the United States
While I never thought the letters sent to Biden would even be read, Schnapf says the next step is to get Congressional Oversight Hearings, and I agree. It will still be difficult, and we may have to generate the response that Oliver Stone got from his movie JFK in order to get Congress to do anything, but his new documentary Through The Looking Glass may just generate that type of interest.
Larry Schnapf writes: "Now that Biden has issued his memo, the focus of our campaign is now turning to Congress. We hope to have every senator and representative receive a letter asking them to urge the Senate Homeland Committee or House Oversight committee to hold an oversight hearing on the failure of the executive branch to comply with the JFK Act."
"To assist this grassroots effort, I have drafted a form of letter that interested persons can use to send to their representative and senators requesting an oversight hearing. In case it is not self-evident, I have placed information about the House and Senate Committees in brackets. Writers should use the senate information in brackets when writing their senators and the House information in brackets when contacting their representative. In other words, when writing a representative, the writer should ask that the representative contact Carolyn Maloney while when writing their Senators, the writer should reference the Senate Homeland Committee."
"Ideally, each person should write three letters: one address to their representative and one to each senator."
Lawrence Schnapf
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