The partial release of previously secret documents detailing the U.S. government’s investigation into the assassination of former President John F. Kennedy has prompted WikiLeaks to offer a hefty reward for the remaining records.
“WikiLeaks issues a $100,000 reward for the withheld JFK documents should they show violations of law, inefficiency or administrative error,” the antisecrecy organization announced through its Twitter account Thursday night.
The bounty from WikiLeaks was posted hardly an hour after the U.S. National Archives published over 2,800 records on its website Thursday evening related to the government’s investigation into Kennedy’s 1963 assassination.
Under the Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992, the federal government was required to release millions of pages involving its investigation into JFK’s death within 25 years of taking effect as long as their publication doesn’t harm intelligence, law enforcement, military operations or foreign relations.
The documents were set to be published Thursday, but intelligence agencies successfully lobbied to prevent the release of roughly 300 of the records.
“JFK Files are being carefully released. In the end there will be great transparency. It is my hope to get just about everything to public!” President Trump tweeted Friday morning.
Mr. Trump said in a memo that he ordered a review of the remaining documents to be conducted in hopes of releasing the rest by April 2018.
Julian Assange, the Australian-born publisher of WikiLeaks, blamed American spies with stymieing the release.
“US intelligence agencies seem to be determined to make Trump look weak by delaying JFK files after he promised their release today,” Mr. Assange tweeted Thursday.
“The agencies have had literally 25 years to prepare for the scheduled release today. The delay is inexcusable,” Mr. Assange said.
WikiLeaks has published more than 10 million documents since launching in 2006, by its own accounting, including hundreds of thousands of State and Defense Department documents as well as internal correspondence belonging to the Democratic National Committee released during last year’s U.S. presidential race.
The organization has posted similar bounties before, and its website currently contains a “WikiLeaks’ Most Wanted” list offering rewards for material related to the 2015 bombing of a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Afghanistan and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), an international trade deal being negotiated largely in secret.
WikiLeaks began crowd-funding the bounties for either in 2015, and its website published a draft version of the TTIP agreement in May 2016.
“To ensure the privacy and protection of our sources, we decline to comment,” Mr. Assange told The Washington Times when asked Friday if WikiLeaks ever compensated the source of the published TTIP agreement.
• Andrew Blake can be reached at ablake@washingtontimes.com.
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