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Comment by lettergram | Hacker News Reader

Say what you will about Trump (lots of bad stuff to say in that regard), but this was specifically one of his campaign promises and after years of legal / bureaucratic battles we at least have some more records

That said, I don’t understand why these types of requests take so long… this event was quite literally a life time ago. Anyone involved would long be dead or incapable of standing trial.

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> Anyone involved would long be dead or incapable of standing trial.

If, for example, some documents include details of spies in Russia never uncovered, even if those folks have retired/died, their network (and its recruited descendants) might well still be operating.

Fair point, although I find it highly unlikely Russians or any indications of Russian involvement will be in here.

Far more likely, in my opinion, is a certain agencies would be implicated in (at least) covering up details

> Fair point, although I find it highly unlikely Russians or any indications of Russian involvement will be in here.

Doesn't have to be. "We asked source X at the Russian embassy if there was any indication they played a role" would still be highly sensitive, even if the answer was "no, not us".

True, releasing the documents could also open the US up to items we did in say.. Finland or Russia

One reason the CIA doesn't release information that has since become public, is because the techniques used to acquire that information are still classified.

Source: "The Langley Files: A CIA Podcast" (Yes, the CIA has a podcast) https://www.cia.gov/stories/story/the-langley-files/

I'm not any kind of expert, but at the end of the JFK movie (1991) it says the House Select Committee on Assassinations files are locked until 2029. I think that is the result of the Warren commission...

>Anyone involved would long be dead or incapable of standing trial.

It was 59 years ago. There definitely could still be people alive that were involved (I'm not implying anything).

Honest question: Why do you attribute the release of JFK docs with Trump?

He could have declassified it all, but didn't.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/oliver-s...

He did. They blocked it anyway. A president's orders are not always followed through.

Source?

https://www.tampabay.com/news/nation-world/2020/12/07/presid...

That doesn't support the claim that Trump's orders were not followed.

"But soon after the bombshell, Trump partially retreated"

It was Trump's decision, but after being advised on it, he changed his mind. This is very much not saying that Trump's orders were not followed.

Bureaucratic inertia. It's not uncommon for orders to go partially unimplemented or even outright ignored by the people carrying it out. Many people have remarked on this. Even Jimmy Carter once remarked that one of his biggest suprises was things he gave an order for were never carried out. Bill Clinton has also remarked on the existence of a sort of "shadow government". It gives rise to conspiracy theories as explanation, but there is a strong bureaucratic intertia in the workings of goverment. It's a big problem, because it makes for a very inflexible goverment overall.

But that is not what happened here.

Here Trump changed his mind, and decided to not declassify it all. I know it wasn't you who linked it, but the Tampa Bay Times explicitly contradicts what you said:

“I agree with the Archivist’s recommendation that the continued withholdings are necessary to protect against identifiable harm to national security, law enforcement, or foreign affairs that is of such gravity that it outweighs the public interest in immediate disclosure,” the president said

While Trump promised to do this, he unfortunately later agreed with the Intelligence Community to continue hiding certain information, which Biden has now done as well.

One obvious reason is that these documents can confirm spying operations that were happening and may still be continuing to today.

For example the US was tapping and transcribing all the phone calls to communist bloc embassies in Mexico in collaboration with Mexico’s presidency but unbeknownst to their law enforcement agencies.

Of course we already safely assumed they were tapping communist embassies, but the documents reveal the precise nature of the taps, what they usually did with the information they found, and to what extent the Mexican government was aware.

There must be a lot of review and consideration before deciding to reveal these details, even decades later.

Consider the prospect that those were just populist campaign lies. For gosh sakes "I'm going to release the JFK secrets" is the most tabloidy, QAnon thing one could say. I mean, it's perfect in terms of appeal to his core demo, but why on earth would he want to actually follow through? What would be the point? He can just pretend he didn't say it, and make up some other thing for the next election cycle.

The big names will have heirs and political heirs. Also why do that for no real benefit?

You think the government wants to taint Hoover's name even more?

Very simple. It would greatly discredit the CIA if their obvious involvement were revealed, even at this great distance.

A great way of re-establishing credibility to wipe the slate clean. All the principles have been long dead. It could definitely be a reset for the agency's credibility as a whole.

Trump could have released the files as legally required, but he folded to the demands of (then) CIA chief Mike Pompeo and withheld thousands of documents (which allowed the Biden administration to continue to withhold thousands more, most of which we will most likely never see barring the collapse of the US government and/or the abolition of the CIA).

He shouldn't have trusted Pompeo- both with these documents and the crossfire hurricane documents. But, even if he did release them, I suspect he would have had a lot more than just the National Archives signing off on raids. Unfortunately, Trump has young kids and grandkids- that's a lot of leverage. Or, Trump was also controlled opposition- who knows. It's all rotten to the core- the collapse of the US government is inevitable- I just hope we don't go the way of the USSR, where the KGB rose from the ashes, destroyed countless records and continues to run Russia to this day.

Trump said he would release information but ultimately backed down and didn't, so no I don't think he deserves any credit for lying about about something else.

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