By Rep. Anna Paulina Luna is threatening to subpoena the CIA unless the agency returns documents allegedly taken from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, escalating a dispute over long-classified records tied to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and the CIA’s MK-Ultra program.
Luna, a Florida Republican who chairs the House Oversight Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets, said the agency has 24 hours to return the materials to Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard’s office. The files were reportedly being reviewed for public release under President Donald Trump’s executive order directing the declassification of records connected to major historical investigations.
“The reason why this is troubling, A) there was an executive order that the president directed the full declassification of JFK, but then also to the MK-Ultra files famously the CIA said that all documents were released and other documents had been destroyed,” Luna told NewsNation’s Katie Pavlich. “So, these are allegedly those documents that apparently never existed.”
Given the nature of docs in question, we are sending a preservation notice. Docs need to be returned to ODNI given that ODNI was given direction and authority by the President to declass RFK, MLK, & JFK. Regarding MKULTRA, these were documents specifically requested by my Task… pic.twitter.com/uBnt5RqjDD
— Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (@RepLuna) May 13, 2026
Luna described the episode as an “internal coup” and argued that the CIA has no authority to obstruct a direct order from the president.
“The CIA does not have jurisdiction to work against an executive order by the president,” she added.
The allegation centers on boxes of sensitive records that were reportedly removed from Gabbard’s office while they were being processed for potential release. Some reports described the episode as a raid, though an ODNI spokesperson disputed that characterization, saying the CIA did not raid the director’s office.
Still, Luna said the documents had been requested by Congress and warned that she would move to compel their production if they were not returned. Luna and House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer have also requested that CIA Director John Ratcliffe preserve documents related to the Kennedy assassination and MK-Ultra.
The dispute comes as Congress continues to press for the release of records connected to some of the most contested episodes in modern American history. Luna’s task force has sought additional transparency on files related to unidentified aerial phenomena, the assassinations of JFK, Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr., and records involving convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
MK-Ultra was a Cold War-era CIA program focused on mind control, behavioral manipulation, and interrogation methods. The program included experiments involving LSD and other coercive practices, often conducted without the knowledge or consent of the subjects.
Most MK-Ultra records were ordered destroyed in 1973, and the program became public in the 1970s through congressional investigations. Its partial disclosure helped fuel decades of public distrust and speculation about whether additional records remained hidden.
Luna’s ultimatum reflects a broader fight over whether the intelligence community is complying with Trump’s declassification order or continuing to withhold records that Congress and the public have sought for decades. While prior releases have added to the public record, they have not resolved the central questions that continue to surround the Kennedy assassination, MK-Ultra, and other classified files.
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