Why didn’t former President Donald Trump release the JFK files while he was in office? According to former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who spoke about the issue to podcaster Joe Rogan on a mid-April 2024 episode of the “Joe Rogan Experience,” it’s because a “sinister” figure in the White House, Mike Pompeo, blocked him from doing so.
As background, many Americans believe that Lee Harvey Oswald wasn’t acting alone when he assassinated President John F. Kennedy. A Gallup poll, for example, found that just 29% of Americans think Oswald worked alone, with 65% of American adults believing that he worked in concern with others. However, opinions on with whom he was working are split.
Gallup, reporting on who Americans think might be responsible for the assassination, or who was working with Oswald when he shot the president, notes that many think some faction within the federal government or the CIA were responsible, with others blaming the mafia and FBI. It reported:
Gallup asked those who believe Kennedy’s assassination was the work of multiple actors to name the specific people or groups they think were responsible, and they cited the federal government (20%) and the CIA (16%) more often than any others.
Another 11% think the Mafia or organized crime was responsible, and 6% suspect that the FBI was a co-conspirator. No other people or groups were named by more than 3% as potential parties to the murder, and 39% did not offer a possible person or group.
The question was previously asked once, in 2013. Since then, there has been an increase in the percentage naming the federal government (from 13% to 20%), the CIA (from 7% to 16%) and the FBI (from 1% to 6%).
The drama surrounding the matter got all the more attention when former President Trump explained that he did not release the JFK assassination papers because of something that was shown to him when he pressed for them to do so. Judge Napolitano, telling that story, said, “I told Trump, ‘you promised you would release the records of the JFK assassination.’ He said to me ‘If they showed you what they showed me, you wouldn’t have released it either.’ I said ‘Who’s they? What did they show you?’ Trump said, ‘Someday when we’re not on the phone and there aren’t 15 people listening to the call, I’ll tell you.’”
The “they” was, according to Tucker Carlson, former CIA Director and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Tucke, making that claim, said, “Mike Pompeo is the one who pressed Trump to keep those documents secret. What’s crazy to me is not just that Pompeo did that. I think Pompeo is a really sinister person and a criminal…But he somehow intimidated Trump into not releasing this. I think it’s criminal behavior.”
Continuing, Tucker said he is shocked that Pompeo is treated the way he is, saying, “What’s crazy is how Mike Pompeo is treated. He’s treated as, like a Republican poobah in good standing. He fully expects to become the Secretary of Defense in a Trump Administration, which is like, completely insane. Why would you take a criminal and give him nuclear weapons?”
Watch Tucker here:
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video
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