The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform announced Tuesday the formation of a task force that will push for the declassification of government records related to several topics of intense public interest.

The newly formed House Oversight Task Force on the Declassification of Government Secrets will seek documents related to the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., and Robert F. Kennedy; Jeffrey Epstein’s client list; the origins of COVID-19; unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs); and the 9/11 attacks.

The task force sent communications this morning to about a dozen agencies and departments including the Department of Justice and the Secretary of State. Its first hearing is set for March. The committee’s first investigation will focus on the assassination of President Kennedy.

“For too long the American spirit has been dimmed by a veil of secrecy,” said Florida Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, the task force’s lead, at a press conference. “We’ve been treated like children for too long and kept in the dark by those we elected to represent us.”

Luna said that she expects the task force to be bipartisan.

Republican Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer of Kentucky said that transparency was a “keystone” of Trump’s electoral mandate.

“For far too long the American people have had reasonable questions of what their government, which they fund every day, keeps hidden about certain issues,” Comer said. “This creates distrust in our institutions. That ends today.”

The task force expects a collaborative relationship with the new Trump administration.

Central Intelligence Agency Director John Ratcliffe — who asked the agency to declassify its assessment with low confidence that the pandemic resulted from a lab accident within his first few hours in the directors office — has communicated his support of the task force, Luna said.

“In full transparency, we have a great working relationship … with the White House, with the DOJ, with the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of State,” Luna said. “The incoming FBI director I think will be very supportive and we’ve also been told that the CIA director is very supportive.”

“This issue transcends not just one administration but multiple administrations,” Luna continued. “It hasn’t been until now that we’ve been able to get people into positions of power that will push for transparency.”

On Jan. 23, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to declassify information related to the assassinations of the Kennedy brothers and King.

Luna said she expects the task force to review the records in a sensitive compartmented information facility (SCIF) before they are released to the public.

When the Office of the Director of National Intelligence shared its plans for declassifying the records related to Kennedy’s assassination with the White House last week, ODNI shared that the FBI has uncovered 2,400 previously unknown documents related to the case, Axios reported Monday.

Luna and Comer said the task force is open to working with whistleblowers and independent investigators.

In a statement, the National Archives and Records Administration said it looks forward to meeting the president’s executive order.

“Our mission at the National Archives is to preserve, protect, and share the historical records of the United States to promote public inquiry and strengthen democratic participation,” an emailed statement said. “We look forward to working with other agencies to comply with the President’s direction pertaining to the records that document the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, and the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.”

In March 2023, Congress passed a law to declassify information related to the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s work with the People’s Liberation Army, its coronavirus research, and three researchers there who became ill in the fall of 2019, with only redactions necessary to protect sources and methods.

The ODNI instead released a summary of intelligence omitting details required under the law, such as the researchers’ symptoms.

Featured Image Credit: Walt Cisco, Dallas Morning News