CIA

CIA Whistleblower: 40 Boxes of JFK and MK-Ultra Files Removed From DNI Office Before Declassification

Ryan Callicoat May 14, 2026 • 5 min read min read

WASHINGTON — A sworn whistleblower told the Senate this week that the Central Intelligence Agency removed 40 boxes of records on the John F. Kennedy assassination and the MK-Ultra mind-control program from the office of Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard — files that were being processed for public release under a Trump executive order. The Director of National Intelligence’s office disputes the word “raid,” but does not dispute that the transfer happened.

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.), who chairs the House task force on declassification, called the move an “internal coup” and gave the agency 24 hours to return the records or face a subpoena.

What was said under oath

On May 13, 2026, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee held a hearing on what its chair, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), described as a “multi-agency cover-up” of COVID-19 origins and gain-of-function research. The featured witness was James E. Erdman III, a senior CIA operations officer with roughly two decades of service.

Erdman testified that the CIA “took back 40 boxes of JFK and MK-Ultra files” that DNI Gabbard’s team had been preparing for declassification. The boxes, he said, were removed from the National Reconnaissance Office during last year’s government shutdown — physically taken “in the middle of the night,” according to reporting that summarized the testimony.

Erdman’s statements went well beyond the file removal. He told senators that:

CIA scientific analysts had repeatedly concluded that a laboratory leak was the most likely origin of COVID-19, and that those findings were “buried, softened, or withheld from Congress.”
As of August 12, 2021, the agency was on the verge of formally adopting a lab-leak conclusion — until the position “changed on August 17th of 2021.”
The CIA denied documents to a task force investigating the issue, illegally surveilled task-force members, and fired a witness the day after that witness was interviewed by the committee.
Roughly 2,000 classified documents related to COVID-19 origins remain unreleased and are being routed through multiple intelligence-community agencies for sources-and-methods review before any public release.

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee heard the testimony on May 13, 2026.

Two stories: a “raid” and a “denial”

Within hours, a spokesperson for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence took to social platform X and stated bluntly: “This is false — the CIA did not raid the DNI’s office.”

Rep. Luna, who initially described the removal as a raid, later clarified her position: the event “did not happen today and was not a ‘raid’ however it did take place and we are just being made aware of it based on reporting.”

Read carefully, the two statements are not in direct conflict. The DNI’s denial addresses a present-tense, forcible-entry “raid”; Erdman’s testimony and Luna’s follow-up describe a past-tense removal that took place during the shutdown. The substantive claim — that records earmarked for declassification under the President’s executive order were removed from the custodial office — appears not to be denied by either side.

Original-classification authority typically remains with the producing agency until records are physically transferred to the Archivist.

How does this happen if there’s an executive order?

The question that animates the political fight here is a practical one: if the President of the United States has signed an executive order directing the full declassification of the JFK files, how does any subordinate agency — even the CIA — lawfully retain them?

The honest answer is that the President’s declassification authority is, in theory, plenary over executive-branch information, but in practice it depends on the custodial agency’s cooperation. There are several mechanisms that allow an unwilling agency to slow or frustrate a declassification order without ever formally defying it:

Sources-and-methods review. Even when the President orders release, intelligence agencies typically run records through an internal review to redact or withhold information that would reveal foreign assets, technical capabilities, or ongoing operations. There is no statutory deadline for completing this review.
Equity-holder process. Many older intelligence files contain information equities from multiple agencies. Each agency must sign off on the release. A single agency’s objection can stall the entire bundle.
Custody. Original-classification authority typically tracks the agency that produced the document. Until the custodial agency hands records over to the Archivist of the United States or to the agency leading the release, the files remain in the producing agency’s control.
Time. Reviews and equity sign-offs can run for months or years. Executive orders frequently outlive their authors.

That structure is why a presidential directive can produce a press release on Monday and yield almost no new public records by Friday. It is also why critics of this week’s testimony, including Rep. Luna, describe it as an “internal coup” rather than a discrete crime: the framing is about an institution’s capacity to outlast its political principals, not about a single illegal act.

What happens next

Luna has signaled that she will issue a subpoena if the records are not returned to the DNI within 24 hours. The CIA has so far declined to publicly characterize what was removed or where the files currently sit. Sen. Paul’s committee has additional witnesses scheduled.

Whether the “40 boxes” will be returned, redacted, released, or quietly absorbed into a multi-year review process is, for the moment, the open question. The deeper question — whether a sitting administration can compel the release of records its own intelligence services do not want released — is older than this week’s headlines, and is unlikely to be answered by them.

Sources

This is a developing story. We will update as the 24-hour subpoena window closes and as the committee’s additional witnesses appear on the record.