(NewsNation) — Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., says she will subpoena the CIA if the agency does not return boxes of files seized from the Director of National Intelligence’s office.
The files, which reportedly include documents relating to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and the CIA’s MK-Ultra program, were being processed for declassification.
Luna posted on social media that the CIA has 24 hours to return the files to DNI Tulsi Gabbard or she will issue a subpoena, as Congress has requested those records.
“The reason why this is troubling, A) there was an executive order that the president directed the full declassification of JFK, but then also to the MK-Ultra files famously the CIA said that all documents were released and other documents had been destroyed,” Luna told NewsNation’s Katie Pavlich. “So, these are allegedly those documents that apparently never existed.”
CIA doesn’t have jurisdiction to work against executive order: Luna
Luna chairs the House Oversight Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets, which is part of a bipartisan push to declassify files on subjects that have long been the subject of conspiracy theories. She has also worked to investigate the CIA’s MK-Ultra program.
Some of the files the committee seeks to declassify are those related to UFOs, the assassinations of JFK, Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. and files related to billionaire sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Some files have been released so far, though nothing has been revealed that definitively proves or disproves conspiracy theories.
Many of the files are released on a rolling basis, with thousands of pages of new and old information released at once.
Asked by Pavlich if the CIA has jurisdiction to go into Gabbard’s office and take documentation, Luna said the fact that someone seized the files — while Trump is out of the country — was an internal coup.
“The CIA does not have jurisdiction to work against an executive order by the president,” she added.
MK-Ultra program was developed in Cold War
The Cold War-era program included tests on how to manipulate and brainwash subjects through the use of torture techniques and psychoactive drugs like LSD. The participants in the program were not necessarily aware of the purpose or methods used, including being given drugs without consent.
Some of those said to have been participants in the program include poet Allen Ginsberg and “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” author Ken Kasey. Others who claim to have been part of the program include Unabomber Ted Kaczynski and Charles Manson, though it is not clear whether those allegations are true.
Many of the files related to MK-Ultra were destroyed in 1973 amid the Watergate scandal. The program’s existence was revealed to the public in 1975, and it has been the subject of conspiracy theories and speculation ever since.
