U.S. Justice Department orders national-security lawyers to review JFK documents

By Sarah N. Lynch

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Justice Department is ordering some of its lawyers who handle sensitive national-security matters to urgently review records from the assassination of former President John F. Kennedy that are due to be released on Tuesday, according to an email seen by Reuters.

Christopher Robinson, a National Security Division official, announced that "all" attorneys who work in the Operations Section of the Office of Intelligence are being ordered to review between 400 and 500 documents each, according to a Monday evening email seen by Reuters on Tuesday.

It is not clear whether that would interfere with the lawyers' regular work, which includes filing court requests under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to monitor foreigners on U.S. soil. 

A Justice Department spokesman said that "no FISA work was halted" as a result of the review.

Robinson imposed a deadline of noon Tuesday to complete the review, which includes records related to the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, as well as Robert F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., and "possibly others."

Trump has ordered roughly 80,000 pages of material related to Kennedy's assassination to be released, along with government records related to the assassinations of former Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and civil-rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr.

He previously signed an executive order in January, prompting the FBI to search for thousands of records.

"There is an urgent declassification review of documents related to the JFK, RFK, MLK investigations (and possibly others)," Robinson wrote to the attorneys in the Office of Intelligence, adding that the only people exempt from the assignment are those who are on approved leave.

"Everyone is being asked to review a batch of documents (between 400-500 each)," he said.

Robinson said that FBI agents have already reviewed some of those files as part of the declassification review.

Last week, some FBI agents were ordered to stop working on their usual cases so that they could review files related to the 1968 assassination of former Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, a person briefed on the matter told Reuters.

The Operations Section of the Office of Intelligence is in charge of preparing and filing warrant applications with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to collect communications of foreigners on domestic soil.

Former department attorneys said the decision to require all of the attorneys from the Office of Intelligence Operations Section to handle the declassification review is highly unusual, and could undermine legitimate national security work.

"If the commitment of such resources came at the expense of processing FISA applications, that would be to the detriment of U.S. national security interests," said David Laufman, the former chief of the Justice Department's Counterintelligence and Export Control Section. 

John F. Kennedy's murder has been attributed to a sole gunman, Lee Harvey Oswald. The Justice Department and other federal government bodies later reaffirmed that conclusion.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who now leads the Department of Health and Human Services, has alleged without evidence that the Central Intelligence Agency was involved. The CIA has repeatedly denied the claim.

He has also claimed his father was killed by multiple gunmen, a claim contradicted by official accounts.

STAFF SHAKEUP

The declassification review follows a staffing shakeup within the National Security Division.

Earlier this month, the head of the Office of Intelligence and another career official were abruptly reassigned to other jobs, three people familiar with the matter told Reuters, as part of a broader effort to purge career employees.

The leadership of the National Security Division, which would normally be staffed by up to 12 lawyers, has dwindled to about three attorneys, one of the sources said.

Trump and his allies have long complained about the use of FISA warrants after the Justice Department's inspector general in 2019 uncovered widespread errors by the FBI in its warrant applications during its investigation into contacts between President Donald Trump's 2016 campaign and Russia.

(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; additional reporting by Andrew Goudsward; Editing by Andy Sullivan and Nick Zieminski)