A potential conflict between the CIA and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard erupted on Wednesday after allegations surfaced that intelligence officials removed JFK and MKUltra records being prepared for declassification.
According to The Daily Caller, two intelligence community officials confirmed that CIA personnel took files tied to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and the agency’s controversial MKUltra program.
The records were reportedly under review by Gabbard’s office for public release, and there were claims that her office was raided.
BREAKING: @RepLuna tells @KatiePavlich that the CIA just marched into DNI Gabbard’s office and seized boxes of JFK and MK Ultra files. Why? All the details tonight at 10pm ET on @NewsNation. pic.twitter.com/B0IpZvA23o
— Katie Pavlich Tonight (@KatiePavlichNN) May 13, 2026
Those investigators were reportedly looking into allegations surrounding the origins of COVID.
MKUltra was a Cold War-era CIA program involving experiments with drugs, psychological manipulation, and alleged mind control.
The allegations quickly drew attention from Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, a Republican from Florida, who warned the CIA that they could face a subpoena if the records were not returned.
According to NewsNation, Luna said the agency would have 24 hours to hand the files back to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
“The reason why this is troubling, there was an executive order that the president directed the full declassification of JFK,” Luna told NewsNation’s Katie Pavlich.
She also noted that the CIA previously claimed all MKUltra documents had either been released or destroyed.
“So, these are allegedly those documents that apparently never existed,” Luna said.
Luna also argued that the CIA has no authority to interfere with a presidential executive order.
“The CIA does not have jurisdiction to work against an executive order by the president,” she added.
NewsNation reported that the records are part of broader efforts to declassify files related to JFK, Robert F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., UFO investigations, and Jeffrey Epstein.
Later on Wednesday, Pavlich posted on X that an intelligence official disputed reports calling the incident a “raid.”
UPDATE on this and more on @KatiePavlichNN at 10 pm et on NewsNation. I just spoke to an Intelligence official who told me the following:
-The documents were not taken today and it was not a raid on DNI Gabbard’s office
-People from the CIA took documents (related to the JFK… https://t.co/PF4jcBx6fc pic.twitter.com/wEIouQosIm
— Katie Pavlich (@KatiePavlich) May 14, 2026
According to Pavlich, the official said the documents were actually removed last year from archives during the government shutdown.
The source also claimed the CIA has continued withholding the records from Gabbard’s office, preventing them from being scanned and released publicly.
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