JFK’s Assassins Would Never Have Been Convicted
Ever since people began coming to the realization that the U.S. national-security establishment, rather than a lone nut, orchestrated and carried out the assassination of President Kennedy, there have been those who have lamented that the conspirators were never brought to justice. Today, obviously, all of them are dead, and none of them was ever prosecuted for the assassination.
The reality, however, is that even if it had been discovered soon after the assassination that the Pentagon and the CIA had orchestrated and carried out the assassination, no military or CIA official would have ever been punished for what he had done.
The reason lies in the law of U.S. “national security,” as established by the U.S. Supreme Court and the rest of the federal judiciary.
Here is how the case would have played out.
In November 1963, it was not a federal offense to assassinate a president of the United States. Thus, the conspirators would have been indicted and prosecuted for murder by the Dallas District Attorney in state court in Dallas.
The defendants’ lawyers would have immediately removed the case to the U.S. District Court in Dallas by showing that the case involved the prosecution of federal officials for matters relating to the federal issue of “national security.”
Once the case was removed to federal court, the prosecution would have proceeded. The defendants, however, would have immediately filed a motion for dismissal of the charges, based on “national security.” Under the law of “national security,” as established by the U.S. Supreme Court and the rest of the federal judiciary, the charges would have been dismissed.
The Supreme Court and other federal courts have made it abundantly clear that when it comes to matters relating to “national security,” the federal courts will not interfere with operations that are carried out by the U.S. national-security establishment. The judicial policy is to show complete deference to the omnipotent authority of the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA when it comes to matters relating to “national security.”
Needless to say, this policy of judicial deference to authority extends to state-sponsored assassinations whose aim is to protect “national security.” The federal judiciary has long made it clear that will never interfere with such operations. The federal courts have even created a legal doctrine called the “political-question doctrine” that, they say, precludes them from second-guessing the national-security establishment when it comes to assassinations or other national-security-state operations.
When the heirs of Chilean Gen. Rene Schneider, for example, sued in federal district court for the wrongful death of their father as part of a U.S. national-security state regime-change operation in Chile, the federal judiciary held that the federal courts lacked the expertise and competence to second-guess the national-security establishment when it came to assassinations and other national-security operations.
When the father of American citizen Anwar al-Awlaki filed suit in federal court seeking an injunction that would prohibit the national-security establishment from killing his son, the federal courts refused to interfere with the national-security establishment’s assassination plans. U.S. national-security officials then proceeded to kill al-Awlaki and then his son too, who was also an American citizen.
Today, President Trump and the U.S. national-security establishment are killing drug-war suspects in the Caribbean, notwithstanding the manifest illegality of such killings. It is a certainty that if anyone were to bring a lawsuit seeking to stop them from killing any more people, the federal courts would decline to act and would immediately dismiss the suit.
In the Kennedy prosecution, military and CIA officials on trial would have showed that it was necessary to assassinate Kennedy on grounds of “national security.” They would have shown that Kennedy’s policy of establishing friendly and peaceful coexistence with the Soviet Union, Cuba and the rest of the world was hopelessly naive and was placing the United States in grave danger of being taken over by the Soviet Union, Red China, and the rest of the communist world. See FFF’s book by Douglas Horne, who served on the staff of the Assassination Records Review Board.
While there would undoubtedly have been some expert witnesses who would have been willing to testify that such a claim was fallacious, their testimony would have been deemed irrelevant. That’s because under the law of U.S. “national security,” the U.S. national-security establishment has the final word in determining what constitutes a threat to “national security.” The federal courts have made it clear that they will never interfere with that assessment, even if they or others disagree with its merits.
Thus, as I have long argued, there is but one solution to the Kennedy assassination and to all the other state-sponsored assassinations and dark-side operations carried out by the U.S. national-security establishment. That solution is very simple: Dismantle the U.S. national-security-state form of governmental structure that was bought into existence to wage the Cold War against the communists and restore America’s founding governmental system of a limited-government republic.
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2025/10/jacob-hornberger/jfks-assassins-would-never-have-been-convicted