Two Republican lawmakers visited CIA headquarters Thursday to investigate the agency’s removal last year of 40 boxes of files related to President John F. Kennedy’s assassination and the spy agency’s MKUltra program that were being processed for release to the public.
The boxes were taken from National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard’s office for unknown reasons sometime last year, but the move prompted the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee to send a letter to the CIA ordering it to preserve the documents.
The revelation about the boxes came from Florida Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, who, along with fellow GOP Rep. Eric Burlison of Missouri, traveled to CIA headquarters in McLean, Virginia, on Thursday.
The spy agency invited them, Ms. Luna told The Washington Times after arriving back at the Capitol.
Ms. Luna said the lawmakers have received “conflicting information” about at least 11 of the boxes.
“So we are going to try to dig more,” Ms. Luna said.
Ms. Luna sparked a social media meltdown on Wednesday after a clip of her talking about a “coup” to seize the files went viral.
Appearing on NewsNation, Ms. Luna said lawmakers had just learned the CIA “went in and took documents” out of Ms. Gabbard’s office that pertained to the presidential assassination and MKUltra, the CIA’s secret program dating to the 1950s involving mind-control experiments.
The congresswoman said the move “seems like an internal coup,” but later downplayed the CIA’s actions after online chatter said the agency “raided” Ms. Gabbard’s office while President Trump was in China and CIA Director John Ratcliffe was in Cuba this week.
“I am noticing a few large accounts stating falsely that I claimed there was a raid on Tulsi Gabbard’s office by the CIA,” Ms. Luna said Thursday. “This is completely false.”
The CIA, she said, “took documents that ODNI has jurisdiction over.”
The CIA’s removal of the boxes sparked fear of a government cover-up.
Mr. Trump ordered the declassification of all remaining classified Kennedy files, resulting in the publication of 770,000 documents last year. The CIA’s MKUltra files, about 20,000 documents, were released in 1977, while thousands of other documents were destroyed long ago by the agency.
Neither Ms. Luna nor others on the Oversight panel know exactly what files were removed by the CIA or why they were taken.
The CIA did not provide a definitive explanation that satisfied the lawmakers, Ms. Luna said.
Mr. Burlison said the duo went to the CIA “to deliver a message” that the agency must disclose all the files declassified by Mr. Trump.
“That message was received and we expect to be able to see all of the files for JFK and MKUltra, etc. and we await these actions,” Mr. Burlison said on social media.
A spokeswoman for Ms. Gabbard denied there was a raid of the office but did not provide additional details about the box-shuffling.
“The CIA did not raid the DNI’s office,” she said.
The House Oversight letter seeking preservation of the documents is addressed to Mr. Ratcliffe. Lawmakers wrote to him that they learned the CIA “took back” the 40 boxes from testimony that took place during a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs hearing.
Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly reported CIA Director John Ratcliffe’s travel this week. He is in Cuba.
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