CIA personnel removed classified documents related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and the agency's MKUltra program from the National Reconnaissance Office, files that Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard was reportedly preparing to release to the public. The documents, which fall under ODNI jurisdiction, have not been returned.
The initial reports landed with maximum confusion. Fox News host Jesse Watters claimed on-air that a whistleblower revealed Gabbard's office had been "raided" while she was giving a deposition. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida appeared to back the account. Then Gabbard's own press secretary, Olivia Coleman, flatly denied it.
What emerged over the following hours, as Breitbart reported, was a messier and in some ways more troubling picture: the CIA did take the files, but the seizure did not happen the same day, and it was not a "raid" on Gabbard's office in the way the initial claims suggested. The core allegation, that the agency physically removed JFK and MKUltra documents that the nation's top intelligence official intended to declassify, stood up across multiple accounts.
NewsNation's Katie Pavlich, citing an intelligence official, reported that the documents were not taken on the day the story broke and that the episode was not a raid on Gabbard's office. The real timeline, she said, was worse in its own way.
"People from the CIA took documents (related to the JFK assassination/MKUltra) from the National Reconnaissance Office *last year* in the middle of the night during the government shutdown."
Pavlich added that the files had reportedly still not been returned. Two intelligence community officials separately confirmed to the Daily Caller that the agency had taken the files.
Luna, who had initially amplified the "raid" framing, walked back the specifics while holding firm on the substance. She posted a clarification on X stating that the CIA took documents that "ODNI has jurisdiction over" and that the event "did not happen today & was not a 'raid' however it did take place and we are just being made aware of it based on reporting etc."
The distinction matters, but not in the way the CIA might prefer. Whether the agency moved files last year or last week, the central question is the same: Why did CIA personnel remove documents that Congress had requested and that the DNI was preparing to make public?
Coleman, Gabbard's press secretary, responded directly to Watters's post claiming the CIA "JUST RAIDED TULSI GABBARD'S OFFICE." Her denial was specific and narrow.
"This is false, the CIA did not raid the DNI's office."
That denial addressed the claim of a same-day raid on Gabbard's physical office. It did not address whether CIA personnel had removed JFK or MKUltra files from another facility, which is what Pavlich's intelligence source and the Daily Caller's two officials described. The gap between what Coleman denied and what others confirmed is worth noting.
The pattern fits a broader struggle between Gabbard's office and the intelligence community. She has clashed with the CIA over classified Havana Syndrome reporting and faced institutional resistance on transparency from the start of her tenure.
Luna did not wait for the timeline to shake out before drawing a line. Her initial post on X gave the CIA a hard deadline.
"The CIA has 24 hours to return the documents to Tulsi Gabbard's office or else I will make a motion to issue a subpoena. These documents have been requested by Congress."
Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado backed Luna immediately, posting "Cosign!" and adding a demand of her own: "I also want the names of who ordered this action and who signed off on this crap!!"
Boebert's demand cuts to the operational question no one has yet answered. Someone at the CIA authorized a middle-of-the-night document removal from the National Reconnaissance Office during a government shutdown. That decision had to travel through a chain of command. The names in that chain matter, and Congress has every right to demand them.
The episode also raises questions about whether the intelligence community's internal turf battles have complicated the administration's intelligence leadership at a moment when transparency and accountability are supposed to be priorities.
The American public has waited more than sixty years for full disclosure on the Kennedy assassination. MKUltra, the CIA's Cold War-era program involving mind-control experiments on unwitting subjects, has been the subject of congressional investigations, lawsuits, and partial document releases since the 1970s. Successive administrations have promised transparency. The intelligence community has consistently found reasons to delay.
Gabbard's reported plan to declassify these files would have represented a significant break from that pattern. That CIA personnel moved the documents out of a facility where ODNI had jurisdiction, and did so during a government shutdown, in the middle of the night, suggests the agency was not eager to cooperate.
The timing of the removal is itself revealing. A government shutdown creates confusion, reduced staffing, and limited oversight. Removing sensitive documents under those conditions raises the question of whether the CIA exploited the shutdown as cover.
This is not the first time the intelligence community's handling of sensitive materials has drawn scrutiny. FBI Director Kash Patel recently revealed a hidden "burn bag" room at FBI headquarters that was missing from the bureau's official blueprints, a discovery that underscored how deeply embedded secrecy culture runs in the national security apparatus.
Several questions remain open. What specific documents were taken? Were they originals, copies, or entire case files? Who authorized the removal, and under what legal authority? Has the CIA provided any formal justification to ODNI or to Congress?
Luna's clarification that she and others were "just being made aware of it based on reporting" suggests that the seizure may have gone undetected, or at least unreported to Congress, for months. If the CIA removed documents that Congress had formally requested and then failed to disclose that action, the implications go beyond a turf dispute between agencies.
The broader landscape of classified-information disputes continues to intensify. The FBI recently opened a classified leak investigation targeting Senate Intelligence Committee Democrats after an NSA referral, a reminder that the battles over who controls sensitive information, and who faces consequences for mishandling it, remain deeply asymmetric.
Pavlich's reporting that the files have "reportedly still not been returned" means the standoff is not resolved. Luna's subpoena threat puts a clock on the CIA's response. Whether the agency complies, or stonewalls, will say more than any press statement about where the real power lies in the intelligence community.
The initial confusion over whether Gabbard's office was "raided" gave the CIA's defenders a convenient distraction. They could dispute the framing while ignoring the substance. But the substance, once the dust settled, was damning enough on its own terms: CIA personnel removed JFK assassination and MKUltra files from a facility under ODNI jurisdiction, during a government shutdown, in the middle of the night, and the documents remain missing months later.
Gabbard's press secretary denied a raid. She did not deny that the files were gone. Luna corrected the timeline but confirmed the seizure. Pavlich's intelligence source confirmed the seizure. The Daily Caller's two intelligence community officials confirmed the seizure.
What no one has confirmed is why. And what no one has provided is the documents themselves.
The CIA has operated for decades on the assumption that it can outlast any demand for transparency, that the public will lose interest, that Congress will move on, that the next news cycle will bury the last one. Luna's 24-hour ultimatum and Boebert's demand for names suggest at least some members of Congress are not willing to play that game this time.
Americans have been promised the full truth about the Kennedy assassination and MKUltra for generations. If the CIA can simply walk into a facility at night and remove the files before the DNI can release them, then every promise of declassification is meaningless, and the agency answers to no one but itself.
An intelligence community that hides the truth from the people who pay its bills and the officials who oversee it is not protecting national security. It is protecting itself.
