Memo to Trump: Release the JFK Files Now, If Only To Save Your Own Ass
I don’t know what the truth is about Russiagate. The evidence presented so far does not strongly indicate, never mind prove, that Putin made a serious try to shoehorn Trump into the presidency. If he had decided to do so, his minions would much more likely have suborned or hacked the undefended vote-counting process, rather than a random array of pre- and post-election social media activity. Or perhaps he just sat back and admired the Republican Party in the state governments it controls do the same. On the other hand, there is a strange pattern of sympathetic interaction between Trump’s people and certain parts of the Russian firmament, though perhaps more organized crime than Putin and his government. There could well be more than meets the eye. We don’t know yet.
However we do know that a strange alliance of corporatist Democrats, with quite a few genuine progressives outraged at the Trump Presidency in tow, and neo-conservatives populating the deep-state organs are getting ready to throw the book at Trump. Relatively few care whether he actually did it; they have other reasons for getting rid of him — his consistent pronouncements during the campaign that we don’t need a big rivalry with Russia, we can make deals with them (about the only thing he was consistent about); his common-sense view that we don’t need to be targeting terrorists or dictators all over the world like some global game of whack-a-mole; his short-lived policy that the US would no longer seek the overthrow of Assad in Syria (soon followed by an unexplained chemical attack in Syria which impelled Trump to lob missiles); and of course panic by Republicans that Trump’s antics will drag them down to early retirement. Given these strong motives and their lack of scruples, they’ll stoop to anything. And, through Robert Mueller (and aided by Trump’s unstatesmanlike behavior), they have it all just about set up, without even seeming to stoop.
So Trump is running out of moves. One presents itself to him right now: release all the JFK files, as he claimed he would do last October. They are certain to show CIA malfeasance, FBI incompetence, and general unworthy behavior by the antecedents of the same organs that are now gunning for Trump. (If they don’t show that these agencies participated in the assassination, they will show that they did something equally dire; it’s hard to imagine any other reason for which they still guard the files.) This will change the conversation permanently, and discredit in advance anything that Mueller presents. Deep-state organs would suddenly have a long uphill climb to get any traction for allegations against Trump. Even if they offer what seems to be proof, popular opinion will suspect it to be concocted.
What will the files show? Well, for example, we know that there is or was a CIA file on Marguerite Oswald, mother of Lee, going back to at least 1953, when Lee was 14. (We know because a document unearthed by the House Select Committee on Assassinations in the late 1970s referred to it; the Committee immediately demanded the file from the CIA; the CIA refused and has held its ground ever since.) What reason could there be for a file on her that early, unless the CIA were working with her somehow, perhaps even grooming young Lee as a future agent or infiltrator? Just the fact of the file’s existence makes nonsense of the CIA’s persistent claim that they had had no particular contact with Oswald and he certainly never worked for them. Other files as yet unseen and unknown, presumably also with content incendiary enough to make them worth brazenly withholding, can unravel the security state’s credibility for good — just in time to save Trump’s ass. I hardly think that’s an inherently positive outcome, but politics is often the art of getting people to do the right thing for the wrong reasons.
Any minute now, Mueller could announce indictments and allegations devastating to Trump. Waiting till afterwards to release the JFK files would be too late; it would make Trump look desperate to divert attention, and belief in his guilt would already be lodged in people’s minds. Trump has no time to lose. Do it now.
Besides, it’s cheaper than starting a war.
© Blackthorn77 2018
