Spitfire List Web site and blog of anti-fascist researcher and radio personality Dave Emory.

For The Record  

FTR #21 Louis Farrakhan and the Politics of Murder

Lis­ten now: One Seg­ment

Draw­ing on infor­ma­tion from the book The Judas Fac­tor: The Plot to Kill Mal­com X by Karl Evanzz (Thunder’s Mouth Press, hard­cov­er, copy­right 1992), the pro­gram focus­es on the behav­ior and rhetoric of Nation of Islam leader Louis Far­rakhan with regard to both the assas­si­na­tion of Mal­com X and the mur­der of mem­bers of a group of dis­si­dent mus­lims. Hav­ing pub­licly called for Malcom’s elim­i­na­tion, Farrakhan’s move­ments and actions in the time peri­od sur­round­ing Mal­com X’s assas­si­na­tion raise sig­nif­i­cant ques­tions con­cern­ing his procla­ma­tion of inno­cence in con­nec­tion with the killing. Equal­ly dis­turb­ing is the descrip­tion of the delib­er­ate and bru­tal exe­cu­tion of mem­bers of a break­away Mus­lim group. Many of the vic­tims were chil­dren. Far­rakhan (then known as Louis X) uti­lized the killing as a veiled warn­ing of what would hap­pen to those who opposed the agen­da of then NOI head Eli­jah Muham­mad.

Pro­gram High­lights Include: Texas right-wing bil­lion­aire H.L Hunt’s fund­ing of the Nation of Islam (one of the points of crit­i­cism of the NOI by Mal­colm X that led to the lat­ter’s split with Eli­jah Moham­mad; Eli­jah Moham­mad’s belief that Far­rakhan would be a good choice to take over Mal­colm X’s role with­in the orga­ni­za­tion; Louis Far­rakhan’s net­work­ing with white suprema­cists; Louis Far­rakhan’s posi­tion as an icon­ic fig­ure for the fas­cist Third Posi­tion. (Record­ed in the fall of 1995.)

Discussion

7 comments for “FTR #21 Louis Farrakhan and the Politics of Murder”

  1. [...] FTR #21 Louis Far­rakhan and the Pol­i­tics of Mur­der [...]

    Posted by Why should we need white slavers when we have Louis Farrakhan? | Lys-d'Or | March 19, 2012, 11:41 am
  2. Dave two ques­tions what do you think of Karl Evanz­z’s new doc­u­men­tary They killed Mal­colm X the Black Zaprud­er film? His chief researcher film mak­er Omar Shabazz also made his own doc­u­men­taries about Mal­colm’s murder/assassination and led demon­stra­tions at the job site of the shot­gun assas­sin. His film is called The Laugh­ing Lieu­tenant. I’m ask­ing because many of us are on lim­it­ed bud­gets and would like your opin­ion before order­ing.

    Posted by Matthew Jackson | July 4, 2015, 8:05 am
  3. @Matthew jack­son–

    I haven’t seen the film, so I can’t com­ment intel­li­gent­ly.

    Evanz­z’s book “The Judas Fac­tor,” is excel­lent.

    One of the secu­ri­ty men from the mosque for­mer­ly head­ed by Mal­com X was con­vict­ed in the mur­der and then giv­en a job at the same mosque by Far­rakhan after his release from prison.

    Good to hear from you.

    Best,

    Dave

    Posted by Dave Emory | July 4, 2015, 3:02 pm
  4. Looks like the NYC shoot­er sus­pect, as I sus­pect­ed, was NOI or NOI-adja­cent. His social media includes endorse­ments of Far­rakhan, pic­tures of Eli­jah Muham­mad, and incite­ments to vio­lence. This is from con­ser­v­a­tive Andy Ngo, so any caveats apply. How­ev­er, he got it right with the Jeren Miles/Facebook sto­ry.

    https://twitter.com/MrAndyNgo/status/1514029565622075405

    Here is one of his youtube chan­nels that for some rea­son isn’t delet­ed. His oth­er one was just delet­ed in the last 10 min­utes.

    https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC25wqoWdSUBACwu-6AXVsvA/videos

    I saved an image from a delet­ed video on his oth­er chan­nel of him rant­i­ng in front of a pic­ture of Jim Jones. I will upload to imgur and post lat­er (imgur is down right now).

    I also have that video in my cache that I will watch when I can use vol­ume. I will also try to cap­ture it for pos­ter­i­ty. May not be any­thing worth­while, but it piss­es me off when Youtube does this before researchers have more time.

    Also, I find it odd that he goes by the name “Prophet of Doom 88” on Youtube. He is old and was­n’t born in 1988, so I won­der about the 88? As weird as it sounds, there are sec­tors of the polit­i­cal world where some Blacks view Hitler pos­i­tive­ly, and the NOI is cer­tain­ly a breed­ing ground for those kinds of views.

    Far­rakhan him­self has lit­er­al­ly called Hitler a “great man” many times over the years, and I have found that the evi­dence that Fard Muham­mad, NOI founder, was an Axis col­lab­o­ra­tor to be fair­ly strong. Who knows, maybe “Prophet of Doom 1–87” were tak­en, but that 88 real­ly jumps out at me.

    Also, the Feds cleared him pre­vi­ous­ly dur­ing pre­vi­ous inves­ti­ga­tions.

    https://www.newsweek.com/brooklyn-subway-attack-being-investigated-terrorism-official-says-1697298

    Posted by Squeaky David Frum | April 13, 2022, 8:47 am
  5. It’s hard to get one’s hopes up when it comes to the reopen­ing of gov­ern­ment-spon­sored polit­i­cal assas­si­na­tions. And yet, it’s also hard not to be at least a lit­tle hope­ful fol­low­ing the announce­ment of a $100 mil­lion wrong­ful death suit announced this week by attor­ney Ben­jamin Crump on behalf of the fam­i­ly of Mal­colm X. Crump served “for­mal notice” to the City and State of New York, the FBI, and the CIA, and oth­er fed­er­al agen­cies in a suit that effec­tive­ly accus­es the US gov­ern­ment of stag­ing the assas­si­na­tion of cov­er­ing it up. Crump specif­i­cal­ly named the FBI and J. Edgar Hoover as being cul­pa­ble in the plot.

    So what is it about this law­suit that should inspire hope? Well, it’s the fact that the law­suit appears to be the lat­est move in a series of rev­e­la­tions that fol­lowed the Novem­ber 2020 release of a deathbed con­fes­sion by for­mer police offi­cer Ray­mond Wood. As Wood describes it, he was ordered to effec­tive­ly entrap key mem­bers of Mal­colm X’s secu­ri­ty detail right before the assas­si­na­tion to ensure that Mal­colm X lacked the prop­er secu­ri­ty dur­ing the assas­si­na­tion, which was the case.

    Now, only one of the three fig­ures con­vict­ed of shoot­ing Mal­colm X has ever admit­ted guilt. The oth­er two, Muham­mad Abdul Aziz and Khalil Islam, main­tained their inno­cence. Wood’s let­ter prompt­ed NY Dis­trict Attor­ney Cy Vance to reopen their cas­es and in Novem­ber 2021 Both Aziz and Islam were exon­er­at­ed. That’s part of the con­text of this new law­suit: it has legal momen­tum behind it. The kind of legal momen­tum that often requires some­thing like a deathbed con­fes­sion.

    As we’re also going to see in the fol­low­ing TPM piece, the fam­i­ly of Mal­colm X has, in the past, expressed sus­pi­cions that don’t just include the US gov­ern­ment. It turns out TPM reporter Hunter Walk­er got to con­duct phone inter­views of both Gami­lah Shabazz and Quibi­lah Shabazz back in 2010 as part of his Mas­ter’s The­sis project on the assas­si­na­tion. As Walk­er recounts, Gamil­lah described it as ‘an Inter­na­tion­al Con­spir­a­cy.’ That anoth­er part of the con­text of this law­suit: it’s already clear that there’s A LOT under this rock. And plen­ty of rea­son to be open to the pos­si­bil­i­ty that there’s even more under this rock than many sus­pect:

    Talk­ing Points Memo

    ‘It Was An Inter­na­tion­al Con­spir­a­cy’: Law­suit Fol­lows A Half Cen­tu­ry Of Pain And Ques­tions For Mal­colm X’s Fam­i­ly

    By Hunter Walk­er
    Feb­ru­ary 23, 2023 6:52 p.m.

    A planned law­suit from the fam­i­ly of slain civ­il rights leader Mal­colm X fol­lows decades of trau­ma and lin­ger­ing ques­tions for his daugh­ters. The $100 mil­lion wrong­ful death suit was announced on Tues­day by attor­ney Ben Crump, who said he was pro­vid­ing “for­mal notice” to the City and State of New York, the FBI, and the CIA, as well as oth­er fed­er­al agen­cies.

    “For this great injus­tice, we will be fil­ing a wrong­ful death law­suit against these gov­ern­men­tal enti­ties for $100 mil­lion on behalf of his daugh­ters that are com­ing for­ward,” Crump said. “But there is no mea­sure of mon­ey, there is no mea­sure of expla­na­tion that they could ever offer this fam­i­ly. The only thing they can do is try to right a his­toric wrong, not just for his fam­i­ly, but for his peo­ple and this world. We have to right this his­toric wrong.”

    Mal­colm X was shot and killed on Feb­ru­ary 21, 1965 at the Audubon Ball­room in New York City. Mul­ti­ple gun­men were involved in the assas­si­na­tion. Three men were arrest­ed and con­vict­ed of tak­ing part. Two of them have since been exon­er­at­ed.

    Crump announced the law­suit at The Mal­colm X & Dr. Bet­ty Shabazz Memo­r­i­al and Edu­ca­tion­al Cen­ter, which is inside the for­mer ball­room. Crump was flanked by two of Mal­colm X’s daugh­ters, Ilyasah and Qubi­lah Shabazz, who would be among the plain­tiffs in the suit.

    Qubi­lah, who has rarely spo­ken to the press, did speak with me in 2010 as I was com­plet­ing a Colum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty School of Jour­nal­ism master’s the­sis project on the assas­si­na­tion. She dis­cussed the expe­ri­ence of los­ing her father and her per­sis­tent belief that a gov­ern­ment con­spir­a­cy was behind his death.

    “I have nev­er got­ten over it. My father loved me and that was tak­en from me. My life was a total night­mare after he died,” Qubi­lah said in an inter­view for the project, which has not pre­vi­ous­ly been pub­lished out­side of the uni­ver­si­ty.

    Dur­ing a brief tele­phone con­ver­sa­tion con­duct­ed dur­ing the 2010 research project, anoth­er one of Mal­colm X’s daugh­ters, Gami­lah Shabazz, who Crump also iden­ti­fied as one of the plain­tiffs, sug­gest­ed she too believed there were larg­er forces behind her father’s death before declin­ing to com­ment fur­ther.

    “You know, it was an inter­na­tion­al con­spir­a­cy,” Gami­lah said.

    Ilyasah Shabazz, anoth­er one of Mal­colm X’s daugh­ters who is bring­ing the suit, is the only mem­ber of his fam­i­ly who spoke at Crump’s press con­fer­ence. Her fam­i­ly is look­ing for “the truth” and to put an end to their “unan­swered ques­tions,” she said.

    “We want jus­tice served for our father,” said Ilyasah, who did not imme­di­ate­ly respond to an inter­view request for this sto­ry.

    Qubi­lah, who was four years old when her father was killed, said dur­ing her 2010 inter­view with me that she “blocked out a lot” for a year or two after his death and “didn’t cry for a few years” until see­ing a pho­to of his body brought the mem­o­ries flood­ing back.

    “My father was the soft, car­ing, play­ful par­ent… my father nev­er gave us speech­es at home, he gave us love,” Qubi­lah said. “When he died, that was all gone.”

    Qubi­lah declined to com­ment on record for this sto­ry. Gami­lah could not be reached.

    It’s Not Just About The Trig­ger­men

    There are exten­sive ques­tions about Mal­colm X’s killing. Only one man, who was named Tal­madge Hay­er, has admit­ted to shoot­ing Mal­colm X. Hay­er, who lat­er became known as Mujahid Hal­im, was arrest­ed at the scene of the crime after being shot in the thigh by one of Mal­colm X’s body­guards. Over the years, wit­ness­es have offered con­flict­ing accounts of what hap­pened that day, stat­ing that there were any­where from three to five peo­ple involved in the shoot­ing.

    Two oth­er men, Nor­man 3X But­ler and Thomas 15X John­son, were con­vict­ed along with Hay­er in 1966 and sub­se­quent­ly sen­tenced to life in prison. All three men were mem­bers of the Nation of Islam, a Black Mus­lim group that Mal­colm X helped lead in the first years of his polit­i­cal career. Both But­ler and John­son con­sis­tent­ly main­tained their inno­cence, but they were not released from prison until the 1980s. Hay­er, who was paroled in 2010, con­fessed to tak­ing part in the killing. How­ev­er, he said on mul­ti­ple occa­sions that the oth­er two men con­vict­ed along­side him were inno­cent and claimed he had four oth­er accom­plices.

    In Novem­ber 2021, fol­low­ing a joint inves­ti­ga­tion con­duct­ed by the Man­hat­tan Dis­trict Attorney’s Office and lawyers for the two men, But­ler and John­son, who are now known as Muham­mad Abdul Aziz and Khalil Islam, had their con­vic­tions thrown out. For­mer Man­hat­tan Dis­trict Attor­ney Cy Vance launched the inves­ti­ga­tion after a Net­flix doc­u­men­tary series released between 2019 and 2020 explored the case. Accord­ing to the New York Times, inves­ti­ga­tors ulti­mate­ly deter­mined pros­e­cu­tors, the Fed­er­al Bureau of Inves­ti­ga­tion, and the New York City Police Depart­ment with­held excul­pa­to­ry evi­dence and “failed to dis­close the pres­ence of under­cov­er offi­cers in the ball­room at the time of the shoot­ing.”

    At the press con­fer­ence announc­ing the law­suit, Crump said it was prompt­ed by the exon­er­a­tions. Crump, who did not imme­di­ate­ly respond to requests for com­ment on this sto­ry, also sug­gest­ed he has uncov­ered fur­ther evi­dence.

    “The dis­trict attorney’s office in the city … admit­ted that these gen­tle­men were wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed and that there was excul­pa­to­ry evi­dence that would have exon­er­at­ed them that they did not release or reveal,” Crump said. “There are many things that will be put forth in our law­suit that speaks to this fac­tu­al evi­dence, things that many peo­ple have spec­u­lat­ed over the decades, but were not sub­stan­ti­at­ed. We believe that now it could be sub­stan­ti­at­ed based on the recent exon­er­a­tions.”

    Crump, who has become a promi­nent civ­il rights leader in his own right while seek­ing civ­il judg­ments for Black peo­ple in high pro­file cas­es of alleged injus­tice, also said his team will use the suit to pur­sue more new evi­dence.

    “We plan on tak­ing depo­si­tions of many of the fig­ures that were involved — either right­ful­ly or wrong­ful­ly — in the assas­si­na­tion of Mal­colm X. It’s not just about the trig­ger­men. It’s also about those who con­spired with the trig­ger­men to do this das­tard­ly deed that killed that 39-year-old young father,” Crump said, lat­er adding, “We believe we’ll be able with the force of law to sub­poe­na and depose any indi­vid­ual that has rel­e­vant infor­ma­tion. That’s what has nev­er hap­pened in the after­math of the assas­si­na­tion of Mal­colm X.”

    In response to a ques­tion from a reporter, Crump said he believed gov­ern­ment agen­cies were involved in Mal­colm X’s death.

    “The con­spir­a­cy includ­ed many, many indi­vid­u­als and many, many gov­ern­ment enti­ties … and many affil­i­ates of those agen­cies,” Crump said.

    Crump specif­i­cal­ly named the FBI and its for­mer direc­tor J. Edgar Hoover, who spear­head­ed aggres­sive efforts to sur­veil and sab­o­tage civ­il rights activists. Mal­colm X’s FBI file, which has been par­tial­ly declas­si­fied, shows that, dur­ing his life, Mal­colm X was mon­i­tored by the bureau and a slew of oth­er gov­ern­ment agen­cies includ­ing the Cen­tral Intel­li­gence Agency, the State Depart­ment, Army, Air Force, and Naval Intel­li­gence Units, the Depart­ment of Jus­tice, the Secret Ser­vice, and sev­er­al local police depart­ments includ­ing the NYPD.

    Star­ing At The Fire

    Mal­colm X was killed short­ly after a bit­ter break with his for­mer allies in the Nation of Islam. In his auto­bi­og­ra­phy, which was orig­i­nal­ly pub­lished in the year before his death, Mal­colm X wrote about how he was a “hus­tler” as a young man. He described sell­ing drugs and engag­ing in bur­glar­ies. He joined the Nation of Islam dur­ing a stint in prison between 1946 and 1952. Upon his release, he rose to become one of the top evan­ge­lists for the reli­gion, which blend­ed the Koran and Black nation­al­ist ide­ol­o­gy. How­ev­er, by the late 1950s, Mal­colm X began to drift apart from the Nation of Islam’s leader, Eli­jah Muham­mad.

    In March 1964, Mal­colm X for­mal­ly broke away from the Nation of Islam. He went on to found two orga­ni­za­tions of his own: Mus­lim Mosque Incor­po­rat­ed and the Orga­ni­za­tion of Afro-Amer­i­can Uni­ty. MMI was a reli­gious orga­ni­za­tion while the OAAU was focused on self-defense pro­grams and pre­sent­ing the con­cerns of Black Amer­i­cans in front of the Unit­ed Nations. The 11 months between Mal­colm X’s depar­ture from the Nation of Islam and his death were marked by con­stant and esca­lat­ing infight­ing between his allies and Eli­jah Muhammad’s inner cir­cle. Both Muham­mad and Mal­colm X claimed the oth­er threat­ened their life through inter­me­di­aries.

    On Feb­ru­ary 14, 1965, a week before his death, the threats turned to vio­lence. Uniden­ti­fied assailants threw a molo­tov cock­tail at Mal­colm X’s home in Queens, New York while he and his fam­i­ly slept. Quibi­lah Shabazz told me she was awok­en by the blaze.

    ...

    Accord­ing to Qubi­lah, Mal­colm, who was wear­ing “his long johns,” grabbed his fam­i­ly and his rifle and ran out into the dri­ve­way. As his wife and daugh­ters fled to a neighbor’s house, Qubi­lah said Mal­colm kept watch out­side, gun in hand.

    “If that Molo­tov cock­tail had gone through the win­dow rather than hit­ting my house and drop­ping, it would have hit my bed,” said Qubi­lah.

    In the week fol­low­ing the fire­bomb­ing, Mal­colm X’s wife, Bet­ty Shabazz, who was preg­nant, and her daugh­ters stayed with fam­i­ly friends. Mal­colm X moved between hotels to avoid detec­tion.

    On the day Mal­colm X was shot, he appeared at an OAAU ral­ly at the Audubon. Due to the explo­sive cli­mate, women and chil­dren were advised not to come to the Audubon ral­ly. How­ev­er, Qubi­lah Shabazz said that, short­ly before he was due to appear, Mal­colm called his wife, Bet­ty, and asked her to bring the oth­er four chil­dren to see him speak. Qubi­lah isn’t sure why he made this last-minute request.

    “No one knows why he changed his mind,” said Qubi­lah. “He prob­a­bly want­ed to see his fam­i­ly one last time.”

    Mal­colm X’s wife and daugh­ters were sit­ting in the ball­room when the shots rang out.

    “It was total may­hem,” Qubi­lah said, “I can remem­ber there being chairs knocked over, peo­ple rush­ing to get out of there.”

    Police­men who were sta­tioned across the street at Pres­by­ter­ian Hos­pi­tal did not secure the scene, even as Mal­colm X’s body­guards implored them to stop the assas­sins from escap­ing. Despite the large crowd, NYPD offi­cers only took three wit­ness state­ments.

    In July 1995, Qubi­lah was arrest­ed and charged with attempt­ing to hire a hit­man to kill Louis Far­rakhan, who was one of Eli­jah Muhammad’s top lieu­tenants and now heads the Nation of Islam. Qubi­lah main­tained the gov­ern­ment was try­ing to frame her. Far­rakhan, who has apol­o­gized to Mal­colm X’s fam­i­ly for con­tribut­ing to the volatile cli­mate that led to Mal­colm X’s death, sup­port­ed Qubilah’s defense. Farrakhan’s posi­tion and the government’s reliance on a crim­i­nal infor­mant led to the charges against Quibi­lah being dropped.

    For her part, in the 2010 inter­views, Qubi­lah said she believed “the gov­ern­ment” was “behind” her father’s killing. How­ev­er, she also sus­pect­ed the peo­ple who want­ed Mal­colm X dead had help from inside of his inner cir­cle.

    “I want to know who actu­al­ly facil­i­tat­ed it,” Qubi­lah said at the time.

    While she and her sis­ters have deep ques­tions about the cir­cum­stances of her father’s killing, as of 2010, Qubi­lah doubt­ed she would ever get answers.

    “I can’t see that there will ever be any clo­sure on this. The pow­ers that be, I think they believed my father got what he deserved,” Qubi­lah said, lat­er adding, “Jus­tice has def­i­nite­ly not been done.”

    Now, after more than half a cen­tu­ry, that may be about to change.

    ———–

    “‘It Was An Inter­na­tion­al Con­spir­a­cy’: Law­suit Fol­lows A Half Cen­tu­ry Of Pain And Ques­tions For Mal­colm X’s Fam­i­ly” by Hunter Walk­er; Talk­ing Points Memo; 02/23/2023

    “Mal­colm X was shot and killed on Feb­ru­ary 21, 1965 at the Audubon Ball­room in New York City. Mul­ti­ple gun­men were involved in the assas­si­na­tion. Three men were arrest­ed and con­vict­ed of tak­ing part. Two of them have since been exon­er­at­ed.

    Two out of three of the con­vict­ed gun­men were exon­er­at­ed two years ago. It’s a long over­due step in the right direc­tion, but also obvi­ous­ly just the start. If Nor­man 3X But­ler and Thomas 15X John­son were inno­cent, who was respon­si­ble? That’s the ques­tion at the heart of the new $100 mil­lion law­suit by Mal­colm X’s fam­i­ly. A law­suit point­ing strong­ly in the direc­tion of a gov­ern­ment coverup. A gov­ern­ment coverup for a gov­ern­ment-spon­sored mur­der:

    ...
    It’s Not Just About The Trig­ger­men

    There are exten­sive ques­tions about Mal­colm X’s killing. Only one man, who was named Tal­madge Hay­er, has admit­ted to shoot­ing Mal­colm X. Hay­er, who lat­er became known as Mujahid Hal­im, was arrest­ed at the scene of the crime after being shot in the thigh by one of Mal­colm X’s body­guards. Over the years, wit­ness­es have offered con­flict­ing accounts of what hap­pened that day, stat­ing that there were any­where from three to five peo­ple involved in the shoot­ing.

    Two oth­er men, Nor­man 3X But­ler and Thomas 15X John­son, were con­vict­ed along with Hay­er in 1966 and sub­se­quent­ly sen­tenced to life in prison. All three men were mem­bers of the Nation of Islam, a Black Mus­lim group that Mal­colm X helped lead in the first years of his polit­i­cal career. Both But­ler and John­son con­sis­tent­ly main­tained their inno­cence, but they were not released from prison until the 1980s. Hay­er, who was paroled in 2010, con­fessed to tak­ing part in the killing. How­ev­er, he said on mul­ti­ple occa­sions that the oth­er two men con­vict­ed along­side him were inno­cent and claimed he had four oth­er accom­plices.

    In Novem­ber 2021, fol­low­ing a joint inves­ti­ga­tion con­duct­ed by the Man­hat­tan Dis­trict Attorney’s Office and lawyers for the two men, But­ler and John­son, who are now known as Muham­mad Abdul Aziz and Khalil Islam, had their con­vic­tions thrown out. For­mer Man­hat­tan Dis­trict Attor­ney Cy Vance launched the inves­ti­ga­tion after a Net­flix doc­u­men­tary series released between 2019 and 2020 explored the case. Accord­ing to the New York Times, inves­ti­ga­tors ulti­mate­ly deter­mined pros­e­cu­tors, the Fed­er­al Bureau of Inves­ti­ga­tion, and the New York City Police Depart­ment with­held excul­pa­to­ry evi­dence and “failed to dis­close the pres­ence of under­cov­er offi­cers in the ball­room at the time of the shoot­ing.”

    ...

    In response to a ques­tion from a reporter, Crump said he believed gov­ern­ment agen­cies were involved in Mal­colm X’s death.

    “The con­spir­a­cy includ­ed many, many indi­vid­u­als and many, many gov­ern­ment enti­ties … and many affil­i­ates of those agen­cies,” Crump said.

    Crump specif­i­cal­ly named the FBI and its for­mer direc­tor J. Edgar Hoover, who spear­head­ed aggres­sive efforts to sur­veil and sab­o­tage civ­il rights activists. Mal­colm X’s FBI file, which has been par­tial­ly declas­si­fied, shows that, dur­ing his life, Mal­colm X was mon­i­tored by the bureau and a slew of oth­er gov­ern­ment agen­cies includ­ing the Cen­tral Intel­li­gence Agency, the State Depart­ment, Army, Air Force, and Naval Intel­li­gence Units, the Depart­ment of Jus­tice, the Secret Ser­vice, and sev­er­al local police depart­ments includ­ing the NYPD.
    ...

    And note the scope of the fam­i­ly’s sus­pi­cions, as expressed by Gami­lah Shabazz to Hunter Walk­er back in 2010 dur­ing a phone inter­view for Walk­er’s Mas­ter’s The­sis: “You know, it was an inter­na­tion­al con­spir­a­cy”:

    ...
    Crump announced the law­suit at The Mal­colm X & Dr. Bet­ty Shabazz Memo­r­i­al and Edu­ca­tion­al Cen­ter, which is inside the for­mer ball­room. Crump was flanked by two of Mal­colm X’s daugh­ters, Ilyasah and Qubi­lah Shabazz, who would be among the plain­tiffs in the suit.

    Qubi­lah, who has rarely spo­ken to the press, did speak with me in 2010 as I was com­plet­ing a Colum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty School of Jour­nal­ism master’s the­sis project on the assas­si­na­tion. She dis­cussed the expe­ri­ence of los­ing her father and her per­sis­tent belief that a gov­ern­ment con­spir­a­cy was behind his death.

    “I have nev­er got­ten over it. My father loved me and that was tak­en from me. My life was a total night­mare after he died,” Qubi­lah said in an inter­view for the project, which has not pre­vi­ous­ly been pub­lished out­side of the uni­ver­si­ty.

    Dur­ing a brief tele­phone con­ver­sa­tion con­duct­ed dur­ing the 2010 research project, anoth­er one of Mal­colm X’s daugh­ters, Gami­lah Shabazz, who Crump also iden­ti­fied as one of the plain­tiffs, sug­gest­ed she too believed there were larg­er forces behind her father’s death before declin­ing to com­ment fur­ther.

    “You know, it was an inter­na­tion­al con­spir­a­cy,” Gami­lah said.
    ...

    How much of the over­all con­spir­a­cy will this new law­suit reveal? His­to­ry sug­gests not much. It’s an appar­ent gov­ern­ment coverup, after all. These things aren’t just casu­al­ly exposed.

    But then again, when you have some­thing like the Novem­ber 2020 deathbed con­fes­sion let­ter from for­mer police offi­cer Ray­mond Wood, doors that have remained closed just might start open­ing. At least that’s the hope with the open­ing of this law­suit. Hope par­tial­ly root­ed in the fact that Wood’s deathbed con­fes­sion was pow­er­ful enough to result in the exon­er­a­tion of Aziz and Islam rough­ly a year lat­er. Few things reopen cold cas­es more effec­tive­ly then a damn­ing unde­ni­able death bed con­fes­sion:

    CBS News

    Mal­colm X’s fam­i­ly reveals let­ter impli­cat­ing FBI and NYPD in his assas­si­na­tion

    By McK­ay Bold­en
    Feb­ru­ary 22, 2021 / 7:12 AM

    The three daugh­ters of Mal­colm X joined civ­il rights attor­ney Ben­jamin Crump on Sat­ur­day to reveal what they say is evi­dence that proves the NYPD and the FBI con­spired to have him assas­si­nat­ed.

    The civ­il rights activist and promi­nent fig­ure in the Nation of Islam was killed at the Audubon Ball­room in Man­hat­tan in Feb­ru­ary 1965.

    The fam­i­ly mem­bers and Crump said the alle­ga­tions were in a deathbed let­ter by a for­mer police offi­cer, Ray­mond Wood.

    In the Jan­u­ary 25, 2011 let­ter, Wood, who was on duty the day of Mal­colm X’s death, said he “par­tic­i­pat­ed in actions that in hind­sight were deplorable and detri­men­tal to the advance­ment of my own black peo­ple.”

    “Under the direc­tion of my han­dlers, I was told to encour­age lead­ers and mem­bers of the civ­il rights groups to com­mit felo­nious acts,” Wood said in the let­ter.

    Wood stat­ed he was coerced by his NYPD super­vi­sors to entice mem­bers of Mal­colm X’s secu­ri­ty detail into com­mit­ting crimes that result­ed in their arrest days before the dead­ly shoot­ing.

    “It was my assign­ment to draw the two men into a felo­nious fed­er­al crime so that they could be arrest­ed by the FBI and kept away from man­ag­ing Mal­colm X’s door secu­ri­ty on Feb­ru­ary 21, 1965,” Wood wrote. “At that time, I was not aware that Mal­colm X was the tar­get.”

    Those arrests were a part of con­spir­a­cy between the NYPD and FBI to have Mal­colm X killed, accord­ing to the let­ter.

    ...

    The office of Man­hat­tan Dis­trict Attor­ney Cy Vance start­ed review­ing the con­vic­tions last year.

    After Sat­ur­day’s news con­fer­ence, Vance’s office released a state­ment say­ing its “review of this mat­ter is active and ongo­ing.” The NYPD also pro­vid­ed a state­ment say­ing it has “pro­vid­ed all avail­able records rel­e­vant to that case to the Dis­trict Attor­ney” and “remains com­mit­ted to assist with that review in any way.”

    Mal­colm X’s daugh­ter, Ilyasah Shabazz, said she has always had uncer­tain­ty in regards to her father’s death.

    “Any evi­dence that pro­vides greater insight into the truth behind that ter­ri­ble tragedy should be thor­ough­ly inves­ti­gat­ed,” she said at the news con­fer­ence.

    ———–

    “Mal­colm X’s fam­i­ly reveals let­ter impli­cat­ing FBI and NYPD in his assas­si­na­tion” by McK­ay Bold­en; CBS News; 02/22/2021

    “The fam­i­ly mem­bers and Crump said the alle­ga­tions were in a deathbed let­ter by a for­mer police offi­cer, Ray­mond Wood.”

    The deathbed let­ter strikes again! This time, it was a Jan­u­ary 25, 2011 from for­mer offi­cer Ray­mond Wood, who is pret­ty explic­it in his admis­sions. He was giv­en orders to ensure Mal­colm X did­n’t have prop­er secu­ri­ty:

    ...
    In the Jan­u­ary 25, 2011 let­ter, Wood, who was on duty the day of Mal­colm X’s death, said he “par­tic­i­pat­ed in actions that in hind­sight were deplorable and detri­men­tal to the advance­ment of my own black peo­ple.”

    “Under the direc­tion of my han­dlers, I was told to encour­age lead­ers and mem­bers of the civ­il rights groups to com­mit felo­nious acts,” Wood said in the let­ter.

    Wood stat­ed he was coerced by his NYPD super­vi­sors to entice mem­bers of Mal­colm X’s secu­ri­ty detail into com­mit­ting crimes that result­ed in their arrest days before the dead­ly shoot­ing.

    “It was my assign­ment to draw the two men into a felo­nious fed­er­al crime so that they could be arrest­ed by the FBI and kept away from man­ag­ing Mal­colm X’s door secu­ri­ty on Feb­ru­ary 21, 1965,” Wood wrote. “At that time, I was not aware that Mal­colm X was the tar­get.”
    ...

    Note how Wood claims that, at the time, he was­n’t aware that Mal­colm X was the ulti­mate tar­get. It points towards the com­part­men­tal­ized nature of these kinds of oper­a­tions, with local police being involved but not nec­es­sar­i­ly know­ing the scope of the plot at work. That’s worth keep­ing mind in rela­tion to Gami­lah Shabaz­z’s spec­u­la­tions about the inter­na­tion­al nature of the con­spir­a­cy.

    And as the Novem­ber 2021 exon­er­a­tion of Aziz and Islam make clear, Ray­mond Wood’s deathbed con­fes­sion has legs. A con­fes­sion that hint­ed at a much larg­er and more orga­nized gov­ern­ment plot to assas­si­nate a civ­il rights leader. A plot large enough and orga­nized enough to con­vict two inno­cent men and keep it all under wraps for decades:

    CBS News

    Judge exon­er­ates two men con­vict­ed in 1965 killing of Mal­colm X

    By Zoe Chris­ten Jones
    Novem­ber 18, 2021 / 3:27 PM

    A judge has exon­er­at­ed two of the three men con­vict­ed of the 1965 killing of civ­il rights leader Mal­colm X. The deci­sion fol­lows a two-year inves­ti­ga­tion from Man­hat­tan’s dis­trict attor­ney that deter­mined Muham­mad A. Aziz, 83, and the late Khalil Islam were “wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed.”

    “I regret that this court can­not undo the seri­ous mis­car­riage of jus­tice,” state Supreme Court judge Ellen Biben said in court Thurs­day. “There can be no ques­tion that this is a case that cries out for fun­da­men­tal jus­tice.”

    Dis­trict Attor­ney Cyrus Vance Jr. said most of the phys­i­cal evi­dence and wit­ness­es could­n’t be re-inves­ti­gat­ed because of the time that’s passed and the inves­ti­ga­tion found that sev­er­al wit­ness­es told the FBI they had not seen Aziz or Islam with the mur­der weapon. The inves­ti­ga­tion also deter­mined that pros­e­cu­tors with­held evi­dence that could have cleared Aziz and Islam at tri­al.

    “The events that brought us to court today should nev­er have occurred; those events were and are the result of a process that was cor­rupt to its core — one that is all too famil­iar to black peo­ple in 2021,” Aziz said in court Thurs­day. “While I do not need this court, these pros­e­cu­tors, or a piece of paper to tell me I am inno­cent, I am glad that my fam­i­ly, my friends, and the attor­neys who have worked and sup­port­ed me all of these years are final­ly see­ing the truth we have all known, offi­cial­ly rec­og­nized.”

    “I am an 83-year-old man who was vic­tim­ized by the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem, and I do not know how many more years I have to be cre­ative,” he added. “How­ev­er, I hope the same sys­tem that was respon­si­ble for this trav­es­ty of jus­tice also takes respon­si­bil­i­ty for the immea­sur­able harm it caused me dur­ing the last 55 years.”

    Mal­colm X, who was born Mal­colm Lit­tle, was killed while giv­ing a speech at New York’s Audubon Ball­room on Feb­ru­ary 21, 1965. Aziz, Islam, and anoth­er man, Thomas Hagan, were con­vict­ed for the mur­der, but Aziz and Islam main­tained their inno­cence.

    “This points to the truth that law enforce­ment over his­to­ry has often failed to live up to its respon­si­bil­i­ties,” Vance told The New York Times. “These men did not get the jus­tice that they deserved.”

    In Novem­ber 2020, a let­ter from for­mer under­cov­er NYPD offi­cer Ray­mond Wood was released. Wood claimed he was coerced by his NYPD super­vi­sors to lure mem­bers of Mal­colm X’s secu­ri­ty detail into com­mit­ting crimes that result­ed in the FBI arrest­ing them days before the shoot­ing.

    “There was no secu­ri­ty to pre­vent the gun­man from com­ing into the build­ing,” his cousin, Regi­nald Wood Jr. said.

    The dis­trict attor­ney’s office opened the inves­ti­ga­tion fol­low­ing the release of the Net­flix doc­u­men­tary “Who Killed Mal­colm X?” Phil Ber­telsen, who pro­duced the doc­u­men­tary, spoke about the film with the “CBS Evening News.”

    “The FBI had eye­wit­ness tes­ti­mo­ny from pre­sum­ably the nine infor­mants that were in the room that day about who did the crime. Full descrip­tions of the men, and par­tic­u­lar­ly the man who wield­ed the shot­gun. That was infor­ma­tion that was not giv­en to the NYPD,” Ber­telsen said.

    ...

    ———–

    “Judge exon­er­ates two men con­vict­ed in 1965 killing of Mal­colm X” by Zoe Chris­ten Jones; CBS News; 11/18/2021

    “Dis­trict Attor­ney Cyrus Vance Jr. said most of the phys­i­cal evi­dence and wit­ness­es could­n’t be re-inves­ti­gat­ed because of the time that’s passed and the inves­ti­ga­tion found that sev­er­al wit­ness­es told the FBI they had not seen Aziz or Islam with the mur­der weapon. The inves­ti­ga­tion also deter­mined that pros­e­cu­tors with­held evi­dence that could have cleared Aziz and Islam at tri­al.”

    As we can see with the exon­er­a­tion of Aziz and Islam, Ray­mond Wood’s deathbed let­ter was­n’t lack­ing in sub­stance. It direct­ly lead to two exon­er­a­tions in less than a year. In oth­er words, this is an inves­ti­ga­tion with momen­tum:

    ...
    In Novem­ber 2020, a let­ter from for­mer under­cov­er NYPD offi­cer Ray­mond Wood was released. Wood claimed he was coerced by his NYPD super­vi­sors to lure mem­bers of Mal­colm X’s secu­ri­ty detail into com­mit­ting crimes that result­ed in the FBI arrest­ing them days before the shoot­ing.

    “There was no secu­ri­ty to pre­vent the gun­man from com­ing into the build­ing,” his cousin, Regi­nald Wood Jr. said.

    The dis­trict attor­ney’s office opened the inves­ti­ga­tion fol­low­ing the release of the Net­flix doc­u­men­tary “Who Killed Mal­colm X?” Phil Ber­telsen, who pro­duced the doc­u­men­tary, spoke about the film with the “CBS Evening News.”

    “The FBI had eye­wit­ness tes­ti­mo­ny from pre­sum­ably the nine infor­mants that were in the room that day about who did the crime. Full descrip­tions of the men, and par­tic­u­lar­ly the man who wield­ed the shot­gun. That was infor­ma­tion that was not giv­en to the NYPD,” Ber­telsen said.
    ...

    Is there enough momen­tum at this point to result in a major break­through? Time will tell. But it’s worth keep­ing in mind one of the oth­er aspects of this sto­ry and and the oth­er still unre­solved polit­i­cal assas­si­na­tions of the 1960s: It’s cer­tain­ly bet­ter lat­er than nev­er for the truth to be revealed. But when it takes 60 years or more to get to that truth, bet­ter lat­er than nev­er can still be too late for real jus­tice. Bet­ter late than nev­er isn’t good enough. In oth­er words, yes, it will be nice for this trav­es­ty of jus­tice to final­ly get revealed. But tak­ing this long to reveal a trav­es­ty is still a trav­es­ty of its own. We’ll see how long this par­tic­u­lar trav­es­ty of jus­tice con­tin­ues to play out. Assum­ing it ever ends. One has to hope. Because when it comes to US polit­i­cal assas­si­na­tions, blind hope for jus­tice as good as it gets. Fin­gers crossed.

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | February 25, 2023, 5:21 pm
  6. It’s undoubt­ed­ly going to be a sh*t show. But what fla­vor of sh*t show? A hyper-orga­nized fas­cist sh*t show that runs as a well-oiled machine, much like the George W. Bush admin­is­tra­tion? Or round 2 of the chaot­ic sh*t show we all wit­nessed dur­ing Don­ald Trump’s first term in office, dri­ven more by Don­ald Trump’s mer­cu­r­ial mood swings and fas­cist impuls­es? Time will well, but it’s pret­ty remark­able how intense the polit­i­cal cross-winds are when it comes to this ques­tion.

    On the one hand, with Trump no longer fac­ing any need to get reelect­ed and already empow­ered with a Supreme Court that has pre­emp­tive­ly grant­ed him pres­i­den­tial immu­ni­ty for almost any­thing he does, the oppor­tu­ni­ties for chaos are over­whelm­ing. At the same time, we’ve long had warn­ings that this isn’t sim­ply going to be a rerun of his first time. While Trump may not be more orga­nized, the fas­cist forces that oper­ate the Repub­li­can Par­ty and the con­ser­v­a­tive mega-donor agen­da behind it — like the Koch Net­work and the Coun­cil for Nation­al Pol­i­cy — are MUCH more orga­nized than they were eight years ago. And arguably more orga­nized for a fas­cist coup than they have been for decades. Far more orga­nized than they were on Jan­u­ary 6th. And much bet­ter posi­tioned. That’s what the whole Sched­ule F/Project 2025 scheme is all about, after all. Detailed plans for a fas­cist takeover. Plans that include both ‘shock and awe’-style tac­tics like Russ Vought’s pledge to inflict “trau­ma” on the fed­er­al work­force. It’s the kind of sit­u­a­tion that sug­gests orga­nized chaos is what we real­ly should expect. There’s going to be mad­ness. Some of it chaot­ic mad­ness result­ing from Trump’s gen­uine psy­cho­log­i­cal dis­tur­bances. But a lot of it is going to be well coor­di­nat­ed pre-planned mad­ness too. Full spec­trum mad­ness is on the way. Inten­tion­al and unin­ten­tion­al.

    And that panoply of mad­ness brings us to the fol­low­ing pair of arti­cles that raise a fas­ci­nat­ing ques­tion about the poten­tial mad­ness con­se­quences: if Trump gen­uine­ly wants to ‘destroy the Deep State’, he would obvi­ous­ly release the thou­sands of remain­ing doc­u­ments on the JFK assas­si­na­tion that were sup­posed to be released by 2017 when Trump was first in office. It’s hard to imag­ine any­thing that would be more dev­as­tat­ing to the real ‘Deep State’. Of course, it’s also impos­si­ble to imag­ine that hap­pen­ing giv­en the real­i­ty that the real ‘Deep State’ is fun­da­men­tal­ly far right and close­ly aligned with the bil­lion­aire mega-donor fas­cist agen­da that will be guid­ing the sec­ond Trump admin­is­tra­tion. It’s not pos­si­ble.

    And yet, as the fol­low­ing arti­cle reminds us, set­ting up a task force to release all of those remain­ing JFK files, as a “trib­ute in hon­or of Bob­by”, is pre­cise­ly what Trump pledged to do back in August after RFK Jr. endorsed his cam­paign. Well, RFK Jr. is now slat­ed to be Trump’s first head of Health and Human Ser­vices. He clear­ly has Trump’s ear. Trump promised to do it. What excuse will Trump come up with? As we’ll see, even Ger­ald Pos­ner is agree­ing that Trump has boxed him­self in and will be effec­tive­ly forced to release the files.

    Now, keep in mind that Trump was appar­ent­ly con­vinced by his then-CIA direc­tor to NOT release all the files back in 2017 even though fed­er­al law man­dat­ed the release of all the JFK files by that year. Then the Biden admin­is­tra­tion found COVID as an excuse to delay the release. What’s the new excuse going to be now that RFK, Jr. is a cab­i­net mem­ber? And Trump’s whole stat­ed mis­sion is revenge against the ‘Deep State’. Again, there would be noth­ing more dev­as­tat­ing to the real ‘Deep State’ than a full release of those files along with the files on a host or oth­er Deep State-relat­ed mega-scan­dals. Like the the oth­er major polit­i­cal assas­si­na­tions of the 1960s. RFK Jr. has more than just his uncle mur­dered, after all. And he did call for a rein­ves­ti­ga­tion into his own father’s assas­si­na­tion back in 2018. There’s going to be noth­ing stop­ping Trump from order­ing his Attor­ney Gen­er­al, pre­sum­ably Attor­ney Gen­er­al Matt Gaetz, to reopen that inves­ti­ga­tion after Trump is done ‘drain­ing the Swamp’ through­out the Depart­ment of Jus­tice. Heck, why not reopen the inves­ti­ga­tion into MLK’s assas­si­na­tion? There would be no greater sign of tru­ly van­quish­ing his alleged ‘Deep State’ ene­mies.

    Well, there is one more thing Trump could do: reopen the inves­ti­ga­tion into the assas­si­na­tion of Mal­colm X too. Not only is there going to be noth­ing stand­ing in his way, but the $100 mil­lion law­suit Mal­colm X’s daugh­ters were prepar­ing against the FBI, CIA, and New York Police Depart­ment over the agen­cies both being aware of the plot plot to kill their father and par­tic­i­pat­ing in the plot. As the suit puts it, there was a “cor­rupt, unlaw­ful, and uncon­sti­tu­tion­al” rela­tion­ship between law enforce­ment and “ruth­less killers that went unchecked for many years and was active­ly con­cealed, con­doned, pro­tect­ed, and facil­i­tat­ed by gov­ern­ment agents,” lead­ing up to the assas­si­na­tion. Trump claims to hate the Deep State ele­ments in the FBI and CIA, right? And he’s prob­a­bly not thrilled with the New York jus­tice sys­tem at this point. Isn’t inter­ven­ing on the fam­i­ly’s behalf in this case like the ulti­mate pow­er play for Trump once he assumes office? Top Tier trolling too. But will he do it?

    The next four years could eas­i­ly be the end of what’s left of the US’s demo­c­ra­t­ic insti­tu­tions. The cul­mi­na­tion of a decades-long far right agen­da that is very much aligned with the real Deep State’s goals. But that does­n’t mean Trump’s per­son­al mad­ness won’t result in some very sig­nif­i­cant Deep State embar­rass­ments. Mad­ness has been unleashed. Orga­nized and chaot­ic mad­ness. A Pan­do­ra’s box of fas­cism has been opened. But that does­n’t mean the mad­ness that erupts has to result in exclu­sive­ly awful con­se­quences. It will be most­ly awful, for sure. But if Trump real­ly is seri­ous about seek­ing vengeance on his per­ceived Deep State ene­mies it real­ly does behoove him to take some long-over­due steps the Deep State has been resist­ing for decades:

    The Tele­graph

    Trump set for clash with CIA over release of JFK secret files

    Nom­i­na­tion of Robert F Kennedy Jr as president-elect’s health sec­re­tary has giv­en fresh impe­tus to calls for the papers to be made pub­lic

    Cameron Hen­der­son
    16 Novem­ber 2024 6:05pm GMT

    Don­ald Trump is fac­ing a clash with the CIA over a promise to release top secret files about John F Kennedy’s assas­si­na­tion.

    Mr Trump pledged on the cam­paign trail to release “all of the remain­ing doc­u­ments” relat­ing to the 1963 shoot­ing, which has been the sub­ject of long-run­ning con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries.

    ...

    After accept­ing Mr Kennedy’s endorse­ment in August, the pres­i­dent-elect said he would set up a task­force to release the doc­u­ments as a “trib­ute in hon­our of Bob­by”.

    Mr Kennedy, who claims the CIA were direct­ly involved in the assas­si­na­tion of his uncle, last year launched a peti­tion call­ing for the Biden admin­is­tra­tion to release the last of the government’s records to “help to restore” trust in the gov­ern­ment.

    Experts believe Mr Trump could have a fight on his hands if the agency push­es back against releas­ing the doc­u­ments when he returns to the White House.

    “There’s going to be a con­flict,” warned Jef­fer­son Mor­ley, an expert and edi­tor of JFK Facts.

    Oth­ers have warned that a clash with the CIA is inevitable at this point, giv­en Mr Trump’s repeat­ed claims he will have the doc­u­ments released.

    Ger­ald Pos­ner, author of Case Closed, said: “I think Trump has locked him­self into a posi­tion where he has to release them.”

    Mr Trump heav­i­ly crit­i­cised the CIA for being part of the “deep state” work­ing against him.

    ...

    Under the Pres­i­dent John F. Kennedy Assas­si­na­tion Records Col­lec­tion Act of 1992, all gov­ern­ment doc­u­ments about the assas­si­na­tion were to be made pub­licly avail­able by Octo­ber 2017.

    How­ev­er, the law per­mit­ted their release to be delayed for nation­al secu­ri­ty and pri­va­cy rea­sons.

    Under his pre­vi­ous admin­is­tra­tion, Mr Trump had pledged to unseal the remain­ing 15,000 doc­u­ments con­tain­ing redac­tions but was then alleged­ly per­suad­ed out of doing so by Mike Pom­peo, his CIA direc­tor.

    Joe Biden released a tranche of the remain­ing files under his admin­is­tra­tion, whit­tling down the fig­ure to 3,500 out­stand­ing files, but the dead­line for their release was pushed back owing to Covid-relat­ed delays.

    Ori­gin of Covid

    Mr Trump is also fac­ing pres­sure to release US intel­li­gence on the ori­gin of Covid.

    Speak­ing to Joe Rogan, the pod­cast­er, dur­ing the elec­tion cam­paign, the pres­i­dent-elect sug­gest­ed he believed the virus orig­i­nat­ed from a research facil­i­ty in Wuhan province.

    “It was all around the Wuhan lab, by the way,” he said. “There are pic­tures with lit­tle lines, their body bags all around the Wuhan lab.”

    Asked about whether Mr Trump would release Covid secrets, Sebas­t­ian Gor­ka, a British for­mer White House advis­er tout­ed to become Mr Trump’s deputy nation­al secu­ri­ty advis­er, told The Tele­graph: “Just look at his answers to declas­si­fi­ca­tion he gave dur­ing his three-hour long inter­view with Joe Rogan.”

    Dominic Cum­mings, the for­mer No 10 advis­er, has also claimed that con­ver­sa­tion around the release of the files is a “live dis­cus­sion at Mar-a-Lago”.

    ...

    Mr Pos­ner believes this will put Mr Trump into a dif­fi­cult posi­tion.

    “If he is this cham­pi­on against the Deep State, how can he for a sec­ond time lis­ten to those peo­ple putting up guardrails?” he said.

    ———-

    “Trump set for clash with CIA over release of JFK secret files” by Cameron Hen­der­son; The Tele­graph; 11/16/2024

    “Mr Kennedy, who claims the CIA were direct­ly involved in the assas­si­na­tion of his uncle, last year launched a peti­tion call­ing for the Biden admin­is­tra­tion to release the last of the government’s records to “help to restore” trust in the gov­ern­ment.”

    RFK Jr has made clear he wants to see his uncle’s assas­si­na­tion files released. All of them. Some­thing that, tech­ni­cal­ly, should have already hap­pened dur­ing the first Trump admin­is­tra­tion, until then-CIA head Mike Pom­peo con­vinced Trump to reverse his pledge. And then COVID man­aged to gov­ern­ment Pres­i­dent Biden an excuse to push it back again. And here we are, with Trump poised to stack the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment with loy­al­ist fas­cists. The kind of fas­cists who may not have been direct­ly involved with the fas­cist net­works behind in JFK assas­si­na­tion but would no doubt share many of their ide­o­log­i­cal con­vic­tions:

    ...
    Under the Pres­i­dent John F. Kennedy Assas­si­na­tion Records Col­lec­tion Act of 1992, all gov­ern­ment doc­u­ments about the assas­si­na­tion were to be made pub­licly avail­able by Octo­ber 2017.

    How­ev­er, the law per­mit­ted their release to be delayed for nation­al secu­ri­ty and pri­va­cy rea­sons.

    Under his pre­vi­ous admin­is­tra­tion, Mr Trump had pledged to unseal the remain­ing 15,000 doc­u­ments con­tain­ing redac­tions but was then alleged­ly per­suad­ed out of doing so by Mike Pom­peo, his CIA direc­tor.

    Joe Biden released a tranche of the remain­ing files under his admin­is­tra­tion, whit­tling down the fig­ure to 3,500 out­stand­ing files, but the dead­line for their release was pushed back owing to Covid-relat­ed delays.
    ...

    That’s all part of what makes the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion sur­round­ing the release of these final doc­u­ments so intrigu­ing: if Don­ald Trump is real­ly seri­ous about wag­ing war on the real ‘Deep State’, releas­ing these files would be one of the most dev­as­tat­ing blow he could pos­si­bly deliv­er. A move that no oth­er pres­i­dent has been brave enough to do. It would be gen­uine­ly his­toric. But it would also impli­cate his own ide­o­log­i­cal allies in one of the great polit­i­cal scan­dals in his­to­ry. Don­ald Trump claims to hate the CIA but loves fas­cists. What’s his move in this sit­u­a­tion? As Ger­ald Pos­ner — one of the lead­ing War­ren Com­mis­sion apol­o­gists — sees it, Trump locked him­self in with his pledge back in August to set up a task force to release the files. Is that true? Keep in mind that ‘set­ting up a task force’ is very dif­fer­ent from order­ing the release of these files. It hints at what we should prob­a­bly expect: a task force that will spend years review­ing the remain­ing doc­u­ments and only releas­es some of them, heav­i­ly redact­ed, before their time is up:

    ...
    After accept­ing Mr Kennedy’s endorse­ment in August, the pres­i­dent-elect said he would set up a task­force to release the doc­u­ments as a “trib­ute in hon­our of Bob­by”.

    ...

    Ger­ald Pos­ner, author of Case Closed, said: “I think Trump has locked him­self into a posi­tion where he has to release them.”

    Mr Trump heav­i­ly crit­i­cised the CIA for being part of the “deep state” work­ing against him.

    ...

    Mr Pos­ner believes this will put Mr Trump into a dif­fi­cult posi­tion.

    “If he is this cham­pi­on against the Deep State, how can he for a sec­ond time lis­ten to those peo­ple putting up guardrails?” he said.
    ...

    But let’s not for­get that the JFK assas­si­na­tion files are just one of the myr­i­ad of state secrets that many would argue should­n’t be a secret. Like what­ev­er the US gov­ern­ment knows about the real ori­gins of COVID. Now, as we’ve seen , the odds of that ori­gin being hon­est­ly revealed is exceed­ing­ly low giv­en the prob­a­bil­i­ty that it emerged from a US lab and Trump’s deter­mi­na­tion to pin it all on Chi­na. Don’t for­get, if it emerged from a US lab, that hap­pened was on his watch, after Trump restart­ed the US’s gain-of-func­tion research that was frozen under Barack Oba­ma. There’s basi­cal­ly zero chance that the US gov­ern­men­t’s full knowl­edge about the ori­gins of COVID would ever be released under a sec­ond Trump term. But that does­n’t mean some­thing that tells the nar­ra­tive Trump wants told won’t be released:

    ...
    Mr Trump is also fac­ing pres­sure to release US intel­li­gence on the ori­gin of Covid.

    Speak­ing to Joe Rogan, the pod­cast­er, dur­ing the elec­tion cam­paign, the pres­i­dent-elect sug­gest­ed he believed the virus orig­i­nat­ed from a research facil­i­ty in Wuhan province.

    “It was all around the Wuhan lab, by the way,” he said. “There are pic­tures with lit­tle lines, their body bags all around the Wuhan lab.”

    Asked about whether Mr Trump would release Covid secrets, Sebas­t­ian Gor­ka, a British for­mer White House advis­er tout­ed to become Mr Trump’s deputy nation­al secu­ri­ty advis­er, told The Tele­graph: “Just look at his answers to declas­si­fi­ca­tion he gave dur­ing his three-hour long inter­view with Joe Rogan.”

    Dominic Cum­mings, the for­mer No 10 advis­er, has also claimed that con­ver­sa­tion around the release of the files is a “live dis­cus­sion at Mar-a-Lago”.
    ...

    And, of course, when it comes to state secrets in need of pub­lic dis­clo­sure, let’s not for­get the assas­si­na­tion of some­one even clos­er to RJK Jr: his dad. RFK Jr. has indeed expressed skep­ti­cism over the guilt of Sirhan Sirhan and called for a new inves­ti­ga­tion into his fathers killing. He knows the offi­cial sto­ry is garbage. So are we going to see a push for a reopen­ing of that inves­ti­ga­tion? We’ll see, but as the fol­low­ing arti­cle reminds us, the assas­si­na­tions of the Kennedy broth­ers weren’t the only high-pro­file US polit­i­cal assas­si­na­tions of the 1960s. Beyond the many open ques­tions about the coverup sur­round­ing MLK’s assas­si­na­tion, there’s also the assas­si­na­tion of Mal­colm X that evi­dence sug­gests was a state-spon­sored hit. Evi­dence that now includes the fact that two of three accused assas­sins were exon­er­at­ed in 2021. The kind of evi­dence that screams for a inves­ti­ga­tion into how exact­ly all of those wrong­ful con­vic­tions hap­pened in the first place. And that’s exact­ly what the daugh­ters of Mal­colm X are now suing for, with the CIA, FBI, and NYPD defen­dants in a new $100 mil­lion law­suit claim­ing the gov­ern­ment agen­cies were not just aware of the assas­si­na­tion plot but involved with it:

    Asso­ci­at­ed Press

    The daugh­ters of Mal­colm X sue the CIA, FBI and NYPD over the civ­il rights leader’s assas­si­na­tion

    By LARRY NEUMEISTER
    Updat­ed 2:58 PM CST, Novem­ber 15, 2024

    NEW YORK (AP) — Three daugh­ters of Mal­colm X have accused the CIA, FBI, the New York Police Depart­ment and oth­ers in a $100 mil­lion law­suit Fri­day of play­ing roles in the 1965 assas­si­na­tion of the civ­il rights leader.

    In the law­suit filed in Man­hat­tan fed­er­al court, the daugh­ters — along with the Mal­colm X estate — claimed that the agen­cies were aware of and were involved in the assas­si­na­tion plot and failed to stop the killing.

    At a morn­ing news con­fer­ence, attor­ney Ben Crump stood with fam­i­ly mem­bers as he described the law­suit, say­ing he hoped fed­er­al and city offi­cials would read it “and learn all the das­tard­ly deeds that were done by their pre­de­ces­sors and try to right these his­toric wrongs.”

    ...

    For decades, more ques­tions than answers have arisen over who was to blame for the death of Mal­colm X, who was 39 years old when he was slain on Feb. 21, 1965, at the Audubon Ball­room on West 165th Street in Man­hat­tan as he spoke to sev­er­al hun­dred peo­ple. Born Mal­colm Lit­tle in Oma­ha, Nebras­ka, Mal­colm X lat­er changed his name to El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz.

    Three men were con­vict­ed of crimes in the death but two of them were exon­er­at­ed in 2021 after inves­ti­ga­tors took a fresh look at the case and con­clud­ed some evi­dence was shaky and author­i­ties had held back some infor­ma­tion.

    In the law­suit, the fam­i­ly said the pros­e­cu­tion team sup­pressed the government’s role in the assas­si­na­tion.

    The law­suit alleges that there was a “cor­rupt, unlaw­ful, and uncon­sti­tu­tion­al” rela­tion­ship between law enforce­ment and “ruth­less killers that went unchecked for many years and was active­ly con­cealed, con­doned, pro­tect­ed, and facil­i­tat­ed by gov­ern­ment agents,” lead­ing up to the mur­der of Mal­colm X.

    Accord­ing to the law­suit, the NYPD, coor­di­nat­ing with fed­er­al law enforce­ment agen­cies, arrest­ed the activist’s secu­ri­ty detail days before the assas­si­na­tion and inten­tion­al­ly removed their offi­cers from inside the ball­room where Mal­colm X was killed. Mean­while, it adds, fed­er­al agen­cies had per­son­nel, includ­ing under­cov­er agents, in the ball­room but failed to pro­tect him.

    The law­suit was not brought soon­er because the defen­dants with­held infor­ma­tion from the fam­i­ly, includ­ing the iden­ti­ties of under­cov­er “infor­mants, agents and provo­ca­teurs” and what they knew about the plan­ning that pre­ced­ed the attack.

    Mal­colm X’s wife, Bet­ty Shabazz, the plain­tiffs, “and their entire fam­i­ly have suf­fered the pain of the unknown” for decades, the law­suit states.

    “They did not know who mur­dered Mal­colm X, why he was mur­dered, the lev­el of NYPD, FBI and CIA orches­tra­tion, the iden­ti­ty of the gov­ern­men­tal agents who con­spired to ensure his demise, or who fraud­u­lent­ly cov­ered-up their role,” it states. “The dam­age caused to the Shabazz fam­i­ly is unimag­in­able, immense, and irrepara­ble.”

    ...

    ———-

    “The daugh­ters of Mal­colm X sue the CIA, FBI and NYPD over the civ­il rights leader’s assas­si­na­tion” By LARRY NEUMEISTER; Asso­ci­at­ed Press; 11/15/2024

    “Three men were con­vict­ed of crimes in the death but two of them were exon­er­at­ed in 2021 after inves­ti­ga­tors took a fresh look at the case and con­clud­ed some evi­dence was shaky and author­i­ties had held back some infor­ma­tion.

    The orig­i­nal case against Mal­colm X’s alleged assas­sins already for­mal­ly col­lapsed back in 2021 which the exon­er­a­tion of two of the three accused assas­sins. But their exon­er­a­tion did­n’t explain how they end­ed up wrong­ful­ly accused and con­vict­ed in the first place. That expla­na­tion and offi­cial admis­sion is what the daugh­ters are Mal­colm X are demand­ing in this law­suit, led by famed civ­il rights attor­ney Ben­jamin Crump:

    ...
    At a morn­ing news con­fer­ence, attor­ney Ben Crump stood with fam­i­ly mem­bers as he described the law­suit, say­ing he hoped fed­er­al and city offi­cials would read it “and learn all the das­tard­ly deeds that were done by their pre­de­ces­sors and try to right these his­toric wrongs.”

    ...

    In the law­suit, the fam­i­ly said the pros­e­cu­tion team sup­pressed the government’s role in the assas­si­na­tion.

    The law­suit alleges that there was a “cor­rupt, unlaw­ful, and uncon­sti­tu­tion­al” rela­tion­ship between law enforce­ment and “ruth­less killers that went unchecked for many years and was active­ly con­cealed, con­doned, pro­tect­ed, and facil­i­tat­ed by gov­ern­ment agents,” lead­ing up to the mur­der of Mal­colm X.

    Accord­ing to the law­suit, the NYPD, coor­di­nat­ing with fed­er­al law enforce­ment agen­cies, arrest­ed the activist’s secu­ri­ty detail days before the assas­si­na­tion and inten­tion­al­ly removed their offi­cers from inside the ball­room where Mal­colm X was killed. Mean­while, it adds, fed­er­al agen­cies had per­son­nel, includ­ing under­cov­er agents, in the ball­room but failed to pro­tect him.

    The law­suit was not brought soon­er because the defen­dants with­held infor­ma­tion from the fam­i­ly, includ­ing the iden­ti­ties of under­cov­er “infor­mants, agents and provo­ca­teurs” and what they knew about the plan­ning that pre­ced­ed the attack.
    ...

    The law­suit could­n’t hap­pen ear­li­er because the defen­dants were with­hold­ing infor­ma­tion. That sure sounds like the kind of case that sure could use a pres­i­dent inter­est­ing in wag­ing war on the ‘Deep State’. What else are they with­hold­ing from the fam­i­ly? Trump could answer that ques­tion more eas­i­ly than any­one else. Will he? And if not, what does that tell us about his ‘war’ against the ‘Deep State’?

    In addi­tion to cre­at­ing a giant mess, mad sh*t shows tend to raise dif­fi­cult ques­tions. Releas­ing the files and reopen­ing the inves­ti­ga­tions is one way the US’s new Mad King can answer at least some of them.

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | November 16, 2024, 9:36 pm
  7. @Pterrafractyl–

    Let’s not for­get the polit­i­cal man­i­fes­ta­tions of Sebas­t­ian Gor­ka:
    http://www.timesofisrael.com/top-trump-aide-wears-medal-of-hungarian-nazi-collaborators/

    Best,

    Dave

    Posted by Dave Emory | November 16, 2024, 10:34 pm

Post a comment