Piers Morgan Uncensored - JFK Files Released By Trump - Was It a Mob Job? Feat Michael Franzese

Episode Date: January 28, 2025

The assassination of President John F Kennedy reverberated throughout the world as the tragic loss of a charismatic, energetic young leader. Known for his inspiring speeches and support for civil rights, his murder has spawned a library of conspiracies all about who could have benefited from it. Was it the Soviets? The CIA? The Mob?! Well, the truth may be about to come out, as Donald Trump has signed orders for the declassification of government reports on the JFK, RFK and MLK Jr assassinations. Conspiracy theorists and their detractors alike are anxious to see what these secretive files may reveal. For an exploration of all possibilities, Piers Morgan brings together author Jefferson Morley, former capo for the Colombo crime family Michael Franzese and former CIA officer and host of 'The President's Daily Brief' Mike Baker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

At 125, the motorcade moves into the downtown area. Death is six minutes away. In a warehouse, a sniper with a rifle poised waits. The president was assassinated, and then the assassin got assassinated. It's like, how the hell do we not know what actually happened? Organized crime helped silence the CIA pawn Lee Harvey Oswald. It was inadequate work on the part of the CIA and the FBI in terms of following up on Oswald. I just remember my father saying, don't feel bad about these guys.

guys were rats. They double crossed us. People in the mob hated Kennedies. You actually went to the Dallas Book Depository and you tried to make the shot yourself and you concluded it wasn't an impossible shot. Nobody wants to believe that something of that magnitude could take place with one person. It has to be a bigger story. Regardless of what is in this next release of documentation, I don't know that it's going to end up satisfying a lot of people. Well, amongst the blitz of executive orders unleashed by President Trump during his first weak in power. One particular decree caught the eye of conspiracy theorists everywhere. We have an executive order ordering the declassification of files relating to the

assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, and the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. That's a big one, huh? A lot of people are waiting for this for along for years, for decades, and everything will be revealed. Okay? Give that to RFK Jr.? Yes, sir. Okay. Well, the official narrative surrounding the assassinations

of JFK, RFK, and Dr. Martin Luther King, namely that all three were killed by lone gunmen have long been questioned by those who suspect wider involvement. That includes the man, many say, has been the catalyst of Trump's dramatic declassification edict RFK Jr. Well, here's how he reacted

to the news of the executive order. Do you think that it's the right move to declassify this? I think it's a great move because we need to have more transparency in our government and he's keeping his promise to have the government tell the truth to the American people about everything. Well, I'm joined to debate all this by my three guests,

each with their own unique perspective on what these declassified documents could reveal. Jefferson Morley is a journalist and historian who is written extensively about the JFK assassination and the CIA. Michael Francides, once a capo and the Colombo crime family, thinks the mob played a critical role in the killing of Kennedy and the former CIA officer Mike Baker,

who says he's not a conspiracy guy and the Oswald could have made the shot on his own. Well, welcome to all of you. Let me start with you, if I may, Jefferson. You've written a lot about this. Your belief is the most likely theory, and we may discover more meat on this theory bone, is that JFK was killed by enemies within the United States government.

And by that, do you mean the CIA? CIA and the Pentagon. That's what the preponderance of evidence that's come out in the last 20 years tells us. Yeah. So explain to those who are not as expert as you are. Just explain, Jefferson, for those who, if not as read as much as you had,

but what are the key things that have emerged in the last 20 years that have led you to that conclusion? Three things. One is the testimony of the doctors who tried to save Kennedy's life. These seven doctors didn't really talk publicly until they got together in 2011, 2010, and their views are expressed on an excellent documentary on Paramount Plus called What the Doctors Saw. And those doctors who tried to save Kennedy's life, who examined his wounds in the 30 minutes before he died,

said unanimously that Kennedy had been hit by gunfire from two different directions. So right there, that is powerful refutation of the government's already weak, gunman theory. A second thing that I think is very important, and we only learned in 2017, the CIA itself did not believe the lone gunman theory. A few days after Kennedy was assassinated, the CIA station in Miami launched its own internal investigation of Kennedy's death. They did not investigate Lee Harvey Oswald. They did not investigate organized crime. They didn't investigate the KGB. They didn't investigate Fidel Castro. They didn't investigate the aliens who were flying. those drones over New Jersey. They investigated exiles known to the CIA in South Florida.

And that report, the findings of that internal investigation were never released. And finally, in April 2023, the CIA's pre-assassination file on Lee Harb-Azwold was completely declassified for the first time. Imagine that. The so-called lone gunman, his file was so sensitive that it took 61 years to totally declassify it. What does that file show us? It's not a smoking gun, but it does show that Oswald was not, repeat, not a lone nut. He was a known quantity, known to a handful of CIA officers working for counterintelligence chief James Angleton.

So with that as the fact pattern that we now have, that the Warren Commission conclusion is not correct and something else happened, I think what we're going to find out is in these files that are to come, we're going to see more of the fact pattern that has emerged in the last 20 years, that the Warren Commission is wrong and something else happened involving, probably involving people in the U.S. government. It's interesting, because Mikey, you are a former CIA officer. When you hear these theories that maybe it was an inside job, effectively, by the U.S. government, maybe the CIA were involved.

Do you think that's even remotely feasible? Well, look, never say never, right? One thing I've learned in, you know, 40 years of investigations and operations is, you know, until you've got all the evidence in front of you, you can't rule anything out, right? I mean, that's just, that's good common sense. I have a feeling, though, that once they release the remaining documents, and I think people should understand that a vast majority of the documents have already been released, right?

So we're not talking about a lot of records here, right? And my concern is that there won't be a smoking gun, as we just mentioned. But I think that, you know, it won't stop a variety of the conspiracy theories. I think it's going to be an unsatisfactory release is what I guess I'm saying here. I think what it will show is what was just pointed out was, yes, Lee Harvey Oswald was a known quantity for a reason, for a counterintelligence reason. He had moved over to the Soviet Union. He had lived there in an unsatisfactory manner in his mind for some time. He had traveled down to Mexico weeks before the assassination to meet with the Cuban consulate.

He was desperate to prove his value to the revolution. So, yes, he was known. And I think what the release of the documents may show, as opposed to a smoking gun and satisfy all the various conspiracy theories, is that it was inadequate work on the part of the CIA and the FBI in terms of following up on Lee Harvey Oswald. Michael, let me ask you your question. The CIA officer, the director of counterintelligence of the CIA knew that Lee Harvey Oswald was in Texas in early November, 1963. Is that an intelligence failure in your mind? Was Kennedy's assassination result?

That's what I mean. I think that, I think what we'll see is, somewhat akin to it's apples and oranges, but somewhat akin to what we saw in, you know, 9-11, a failure to coordinate across the board, right? So the FBI, the CIA doesn't say that, by the way. Yeah, what's that? The CIA, by the way, and no investigative body has ever said that. What the investigative bodies were told was, and I quote director Richard Helms under oath, we only had minimal information about him. Is 180 pages of material in Lee Harvey Oswald minimal? Yeah, look, again, from a counterintelligence perspective, Lee Harvey Oswald is he? I know, I know, but we've got to have a conversation here where one of us only talks at a time. Yeah, okay. But, I mean, my point is, from a counterintelligence perspective, Lee Harvey Oswald is exactly the sort of person that the agency and the Bureau should have been focused on, right? And so what I'm saying is the release of the records may well.

Yeah, may well show that that was not being done. and I think it could be embarrassing to the government, and may well have been the reason why in 2017, during Trump's first term, some of the material was kept classified. Okay, but Mike Baker, before I go to Michael Francie's for the mob side of this in terms of theories, you actually went to the Dallas book depository, didn't you?

And you tried to make the shot yourself, and you concluded it wasn't an impossible shot. In other words, it was possible that the theory that Lee Harvey Oswald just fired this bullet that went through two people was what happened. Yeah, look, the point being is that the shot itself was not a difficult shot. There was no wind.

It was moving in the straight line. He had wrecked the location ahead of time from a operational perspective, and he had sufficient training as a Marine. It's not hard to say, okay, oh, my God, there's no way this guy could have made the shot. So my point is he could have made this shot. Again, I go back to the same thing.

It's like with MLK, Martin Luther King, which I think is definitely an investigation that needs to be dug into much harder, right? You can never say never until you have all the evidence in front of you. So I'm not drawing a line under this and saying, we know for a fact what happened. I'm just saying that the release of the remaining documents will probably not be a satisfying experience.

Right, I'm thinking you may be right. It's bringing Michael Francis. He'll be waiting very patiently. I want to tee you up, Michael, by playing a clip. This is RFK Jr.'s' daughter. daughter-in-law who come out and send this to Tucker Carlson. Let's take a look. And I feel something of a responsibility to get to the bottom of that, at least in my lifetime,

for my children. You know, I mean, my daughter, Bobcat is Bobby the fourth. So her great-grandfather was RFK. And I don't, I want to be able to look at her and for her to know whether or not her own government was involved in these assassinations. And if so, what's been done about it to make sure that that never, ever happens again. There's never a coup like that in this country again. And I think when you look at the collaboration that was going on in those days between the intelligence community and organized crime and the mob, you know, there were very blurry, boundaries. Yeah.

Michael, you know, you said if you believe Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, then you believe in Santa Claus. One of the big theories, of course, is that both the Kennedy brothers were, you know, the thick as thieves were a lot of the mob, and that this was not a connection that should be ruled out. Explain why you think this might be one of the theories, and it may be we get more information about that if these files get released. Well, Pierce, I can only tell you what I've heard my entire life, and that was from the time Kennedy got killed.

You know, we hated, people in the mob hated Kennedys, you know, and normally guys in the mob don't want to take credit for things like this. They'd rather not talk about it. Not the thugs. I mean, the people in charge. People like Carmai Persico, who was the boss of the Colombo family, Tony Salerno, boss of the Genevese family, and my father, who was very high up at the time. You know, it goes back, I was 12 years old when Kennedy got killed, and I just remember my father saying things to my mother, don't feel bad about these guys were rats, they double crossed us and so on and so forth. Cut to the time that I was in the life. And, you know, I heard consistently from Persico, from Tony, from my father, that I, what I believe it came down is that the CIA had come to, they said the CIA, people in government who were part of this assassination plot with the Kennedy's, came to us after and asked that Oswald be killed. Jack Ruby, I don't know why people

deny that he wasn't mobbed up. He was totally mobbed up. You know, from the time he was in Chicago, he had relationships with Sam J. Ancana. He had relationships with Joe Campisi, who was really the boss of Dallas, who was very close with Carlos Marcello in New Orleans. And he also had cops on his payroll. He was able to get entry into Oswald. Now, I will tell you this. What I also heard is this. Again, these people don't brag about things like this. They're talking matter-of-factly. You know, the fact that allegedly what I was told, they had a deal with Joe Kennedy, who I know was definitely in touch with and had relationships with Frank Costello during his bootlaking days. There's no question about that. People can deny it. They can, but I've heard that

my entire life, too. And that guys in Chicago were instrumental in helping many of the labor unions, vote for the Democrats. Now, Chicago's a mob-run city. You know, it always was, you know, from the days of component on forward. And the mob played a part in helping deliver. And that was a very tight election between Kennedy and Nixon. And the deal was that the heat was supposed to be off. What I heard afterwards, Robert Kennedy, who my father hated, my father believes Robert Kennedy was the one that really pursued him, put him away for 50 years, that the Justice Department was supposed to back off us, and instead they went on even harder. And so if I had to take a lie to test and swear to it, what I've heard my entire life from people in the know, it was definitely mob involvement in that.

Jack Ruby was definitely hooked up with us. And look, that wasn't the first time the CIA came to us. I mean, they did it, you know, they tried to assassinate, what's his name, Castro from Cuba. They went to Johnny Rosella and Sam J. and Connor. And what about, you know, during World War II? when they went to Lucky Luchiano and Mario Lanski for help to get the Allies into Sicily. So is it, you know, I don't believe that the United States government ever wants to get word out there that the mob had anything to do with assassinating a sitting president. So I don't know if it's ever going to be revealed. But if I had to swear to it, you know, it was a matter of life and death of me, based upon everything I heard from the right people, I'd have to say there's no doubt in my mind. Fascinating.

Jefferson, I saw you nodding to quite a lot of that. I mean, I don't think there's any doubt that Kennedy family had a lot of contact with the mob in varying ways, and there's no doubt that the general perceived wisdom is that they went back on a deal when JFK became president, they reneged on a deal to be more helpful to the mob, and in fact, went the other way, and it ended up with Robert Kennedy really targeting them and going after them.

So there was clearly a sense of betrayal there, from members of the mob at the time. I think that is indisputable. Do you think it's a stretch to say that maybe they were behind all this? I think Michael had it exactly right. The organized crime rule was to eliminate Oswald, the inconvenient witness, and they used their pawn, Jack Ruby, to do that. I don't think that organized crime organized the whole ambush in Dealey Plaza.

That was a very sophisticated operation. And organized crime, when they decide to take somebody out, They don't shoot at a moving target in a public space. You know, they kill them behind doors or give them cement shoes. So the operation itself seems more sophisticated than an organized crime. But Michael's absolutely right about the organized crime role in the events of 1963. Organized crime helped silence the CIA pawn Lee Harvey Oswald. Mike Bacon, let's take a look at the clip of Lee Harvey Oswald.

This is after he was arrested. I really don't know what the situation is about. Nobody has told me anything. of murdering the police. I know nothing more than that, and I do request someone to come forward to give me illegal assistance. Did you kill the president?

No, I've not been charged with that. In fact, nobody has said that to me yet. You know what struck me, Mike, was just, until recently, I was always of the view, how the hell do we not know more about this? How do we not know actually? what happened. This is the United States of America. This is the president was assassinated,

and then the assassin got assassinated. And then the president's brother and so how can he still be things that are unresolved? And then I saw what happened with Donald Trump, where he is the victim of an attempted assassination. He gets hit on the year. He nearly dies. The guy is on a roof 150 yards away and he gets killed, so we'll never find out from him. But we still know so little about that young guy, right? We just don't know much about him at all. Motivation, why he did it, background, no social media. It was all just very odd and has all just kind of disappeared off the news radar.

And so now I'm beginning to understand why we know really so little hard fact about what happened in 63 because even with all the powers we now have of the internet and all the rest of it, we're still none the wiser about what happened in the summer with Donald Trump. No, that's right. And it's interesting. It's not to disappear down an unrelated rabbit hole, but if you look at it, we're in two different times, right? Now, the flow of information now and present times, access to information, everybody's got a smartphone, you know, media's playing beat the clock against anybody who's got a smartphone who thinks they're a journalist. So you would imagine that information would have flown much quicker and there would be more transparency

after the incident with Donald Trump, the first incident with Donald Trump. And, you know, previously with JFK, with RFK, with MLK, Martin Luther King, that wasn't the case, right? We had to wait for the evening news and information flowed much slower. But it is remarkable after all this time.

Look, you know, the commission in the congressional law 92, you know, which said, you know, you have to release this information on JFK unless there is deemed to be some national security concern, you know, that was a 25-year hold. So 2017, it was, you know, Trump who then came in and said, well, okay, some of it's going to have to remain classified. That continues this burning desire on the public's part. And also from a conspiracy point of view, look, nobody wants to imagine that it was one person, right? I'm not saying it was one person. Again, I, you know, I haven't seen all the

evidence. I was a toddler when this happened, and the CIA didn't hire me to do it, right? So, although that would have been a remarkable event. But what I'm saying is it's one of those things where nobody wants to believe that something of that magnitude could take place with one person. It has to be a bigger story. Maybe it is. But I understand why conspiracy theories continue as they are, right? And this is a remarkable issue. If they don't release every document, and this is not an executive order that says you will now release the document, it says DOJ and the Director of National Intelligence have 15 days to decide a plan to release the material.

They could still hold some of it back, right? But I think at this stage of the game, you know, there's no real sound argument for sources and methods or protection of individual. Just release it, right? And again, it may be unsatisfactory. There may not be a smoking gun, but at least you're taking another step towards transparency.

Yeah, and of course, Jefferson Morley, I know that you said that some of the most important files are missing, probably destroyed. These include the official JFK autopsy report, which contradicts supposedly the lone gunman, a single bullet theory, the recording of a phone call between Lyndon Johnson and J. Edgar Hoover on the morning of the assassination, the CIA files on Lee Harviel's Russia connections. These all seem very, very important, significant things,

which if they have just been destroyed or disappeared for whatever reason, then this could end up being a bit of a damp squib. But that would then prompt the question, well, if it's a damp squib, why have you not just revealed all this before? Yeah. Yeah, the law, you know, the law is very clear, and it was supposed to have been, it had a 2017 sunset provision. So the CIA has blown the deadline by eight years. So naturally people are getting, you know, getting a little impatient. But I'll say this, you know, peers, yes, a lot has been destroyed, but you can't understand what's going to come out in the next few weeks

if you don't understand what's come out in the last few years. The pre-assassassination Oswald file, what the doctors saw, the CIA's own internal investigation. And there are documents in the collection that apply directly to these matters that should be declassified. And I want to say this, you know, I've been at this a long time, and I have high expectations, but I also have hard experience. The CIA knows how to push back. They know how to get a presidency or they know how to make it make it. him defer to their wishes. It happened to Biden. It happened to Trump. And it could definitely happen again. What's key is that people understand we have a benchmark, a dozen documents.

If we get all 12, Trump gets an A. If we get nine out of the 12, Trump gets a B. If we get six out of the 12, we know how strong the CIA remains. It's not complicated. James Angleton's testimony to the Church Committee in 1975, 120-page document, heavily redacted. Angleton controlled the Oswald file from 1959 to 1963, so that document should be made public immediately. CIA surveillance operations in Mexico City that picked up on Oswald. There's a 77-page report on those heavily redacted. That should be declassified. So this isn't a fishing expedition, and we're not looking for smoking guns.

We're looking at the fact pattern that will establish that the government's account of the crime is not correct, and we need a better explanation. And Michael Francis, I mean, if I was an American Michael Francis, I mean, you have a right to know this stuff. I mean, this involves the assassination of one of your presidents, the assassination of potentially the next president in Bobby Kennedy, and then the assassination obviously of Martin Luther King as well. We haven't got to that. But in terms of JFK in particular, the American people, I think, have a fundamental right to know this stuff. Absolutely, Pearson. What I would like to see, I would like to see if they deny the fact that Jack Ruby had mob connections.

Because if they deny that, then I know this whole thing is a sham. Because he absolutely 100% of his entire life going back to Chicago. And then I think, you know, Camp PC, who was a very powerful mob guy in Dallas, he had, you know, connections with all the strip clubs and the places that Ruby was involved in. if they, because you don't hear much about Jack Ruby, did you see with some lone nut, you know? If they lie about his connections, then that says it all to me.

I wouldn't believe anything that came out of that from that point on because he was definitely connected to us. Let me ask you, Michael, with the mob theory, Michael, it's such a big thing to do, whoever you are, to be involved in the assassination of an American president. You know, you were in the mob a long time

at pretty high level. Could you ever countenance the idea that that would happen, that you would have the mob in any way, any one of the families, being directly complicit in the involved assassination of a president? The answer to me is yes, because, you know, it was during that time, I always say this, Pierce, the golden years of the mob in the United States was really from the late 40s, mid-40s, right through to the mid-80s when Giuliani went wild with the RICO Act and put a lot of the, damaging. We had a lot of power at that time. You're talking about, you know, 50, 67. We had a lot of power. And, you know, Sam Giancona, very powerful guy, Carlos Marcelli, all the five families in New York. We had power and connections, and it's not inconceivable. Again, the CIA, I think it's a matter of fact that they came to us on two occasions. And why would they not come to us at this point in time, too? We had the ability. And look, Jack Ruby had the connections. He had, uh, he had, uh,

A lot of connections with the police department. He was able to get into that area that night. You know, I don't know if they questioned him. I mean, the guy had a gun on him. How did he get in there at that point in time? You know, look, it's absolutely not out of the question. And like I said, Pierce, if you had to give me a lie detector test and my life depended on it, everything that I've heard points to mob involvement in that.

And again, I want to reiterate what this other gentleman said. I'm not saying we were involved from day one. but I know that we hated the Kennedys. There was no question about that. As a matter of fact, I think there was one, Sam Giancona was caught on tape saying, we killed the wrong Kennedy, because it was really Bobby, from what I understand,

that went against Joe Kennedy and John Kennedy, and still continued going after the mob when he was supposed to back off. And I think I heard that there was some kind of discussion about that, that Frank Sinatra came back and told Giancana, they can't control Bobby. I heard that also. So, no, there was a lot of stuff pointing to the fact.

But I'm telling you that the key is here, if they deny that Jack Ruby was not all mobbed off and had a mob connection, you know, this whole thing is false. Fascinating. And finally, Mike Baker. I mean, the problem is we live in a conspiracy-fueled era now where the social media in particular makes a conspiracy theory out of everything, right? I mean, there's just nothing that can happen now without immediately absurd, crazy. crazy theories. You know, from a CIA point of view, is that a good or bad thing? Does it help mask, you know, some pretty secret covert activity? Does it muddy waters? Does it get in the way? What do you feel about the sort of ongoing tsunami of conspiracy theories?

Yeah, look, it's, it's such a complex question. There's an upside and a downside to it, right? In terms of, you know, from an operational perspective, you, if you've got a lot of noise that you've created out there and a lot of different, you know, dead ends that people can run down, then yes, it could benefit you from an operational perspective. That's why you have covert action campaigns, propaganda campaigns, disinformation campaigns, misinformation campaigns, right? Because it can be beneficial from an operational standpoint, right? That's why any intelligence service that's got the resources and the motivation engages in that sort of behavior as well. So again, it's, you know, we live at a time where, you know,

Do you have more conspiracy theories now than ever before? Well, yes, you do because of the speed of information and the access to information that people have in general. But this, the JFK situation, I have this feeling, call me cynical, but I've looked at it a lot. I've looked at the MLK. Again, I would like to make a final pitch that Martin Luther King is something we should be talking about on another segment.

And there's a fascinating thread between RFK and Martin Luther King. like Robert Kennedy, he authorized some of the wiretaps on Martin Luther King, right? So there's connections here that are very, very interesting. But I just think this conspiracy theory, regardless of what is in this next release of documentation, even if it's a full release, I don't know that it's going to end up satisfying a lot of people. You know, it's interesting. We're talking this week about this, and we'll obviously have to wait, maybe get you guys all back when we get them declassified and revealed.

if they reveal them all. But we're also, literally yesterday, it's now been reported that the official kind of American government position on COVID, is it almost certainly did now emanate from the lab, you know, the Wuhan Institute of Orology, which doesn't seem anything other than the bleeding obvious

given it was literally testing coronaviruses. But if you remember at the time in 2020 that people who put forward, they were called mad conspiracy theorists, you know, And it's like one of those things where you look back, it's only four or five years ago that people were accused of being nutcases

for saying that it didn't come from the wet market and must have come from the lad now that it seems to be that is indeed how COVID originated, which seems obvious when you look back at it. Similarly, like I said, we don't know anything about why that kid tried to kill Trump last summer. So I hope we do get clarity on this, but it's going to be fascinating.

And I do think actually Michael Francie's, at your point, was really good because there can be no doubt from everything I've read that Jack Ruby was with the mob. And if they do try and pretend that wasn't the case, everything else that they say, I suspect, can be taken with a pinch of salt. It's going to be riveting. I mean, and the fact we've got potentially a member of Trump's cabinet is literally the son of Bobby Kennedy when this all goes down is going to be fascinating. But for now, I will leave it. But we'll get you back, you guys, when it all comes. comes out, it's going to be, I think, for all of us, a very exciting day. So thank you very much.