House Republicans announce task force on declassification of federal secrets

House Republicans on Tuesday announced a new task force aimed at declassifying long-standing government secrets. Its chairwoman, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., told reporters the focus will be on restoring government’s transparency wherever possible.

Luna thanked House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and House Oversight Committee chairman James Comer, R-Ky., for what she called the profound honor of leading the task force. She pledged to cut through government bureaucracy, challenge stonewalling, and ensure that the American people gain access to long-standing government secrets.

The task force will act as a component of the House Oversight Committee. Luna said its efforts will be bipartisan, but she did not identify which Democrats have expressed interest in joining.

What kinds of information will the task force investigate? Luna said her task force will focus on managing the declassification of federal secrets surrounding mysteries such as the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., unidentified aerial phenomenon, unidentified submerged objects, the Epstein client list, the origins of COVID-19, and files on the September 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center.

While the taskforce itself will not have subpoena power, Comer said he will cooperate with congressional investigators to ensure they could compel testimony, if needed.

According to Luna, letters were sent out earlier on Tuesday to the State Department, the CIA, the National Security Agency, and other agencies for relevant documentation.

What will be the task force’s first priority? Luna identified the JFK assassination as the task force’s top priority in the coming months. She said her team had already looked into inviting testimony from the original physicians who had been in the room during the president’s autopsy.

Luna said the task force will hold its first hearing in March. That hearing, along with the task force’s other activities, will be open to the public.

Dig deeper: Questions about JFK’s assassination continue to surface even decades after the president’s death in 1963. Read my reporting on some of the most recent questions to come to light.