Morely 3,CIA 0

By Jeff Morely


A federal appellate court has again rejected the arguments of the Central Intelligence Agency in a long-running lawsuit over ancient but still-sensitive CIA files related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
Jim Lesar

James Lesar, veteran FOIA litigator, prevailed over the CIA attorneys for a third time.

On Thursday, a three-judge panel in Washington D.C. unanimously denied the CIA’s claim that there is no “public benefit” to the disclosure of long-suppressed records of a deceased CIA officer involved in the events that led to the death of the liberal president on November 22, 1963.

“When that subject is the Kennedy assassination, an event with few rivals in national trauma and in the array of passionately held conflicting explanations showing potential public value is relatively easy,” wrote Senior Circuit Judge Stephen Williams.

The records were forced into public view by a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit that I brought against the CIA in 2003. The records revealed for the first time that the officer received a Career Intelligence Medal in 1981, two years after stonewalling congressional investigators about what he knew of contacts in 1963 between accused assassin Lee Oswald and CIA-funded anti-Castro exiles in New Orleans.


JFKFacts

a reply to: mike dangerously

During the course of this case investigative reporter Jefferson Morely and his lawyer have been fighting the CIA for access to the records of George Joannides who not only served as the liaison for the CIA for the House Select Committee on Assassinations he was also the case officer for the DRE the anti-Castro group who had an scuffle with Oswald down in New Orleans. Here's what G.Robert Blakey the former chief council of the HSCA
said about him in a 03 documentary:"I was not told of Joannides' background with the DRE, a focal point of the investigation. Had I known who he was, he would have been a witness who would have been interrogated under oath by the staff or by the committee. He would never have been acceptable as a point of contact with us to retrieve documents. In fact, I have now learned, as I note above, that Joannides was the point of contact between the Agency and DRE during the period Oswald was in contact with DRE."

Morley vs.CIA: DC District Court.


For anyone who wants more details about the case the decision is in the link above.The Agency tried to play down George Joannides's connections with the Anti-Castro group DRE.He was also in New Orleans the same time that investigators for the Warren Commission were in town.Coaching them on what to say?