The CIA seized files related to MKUltra and the assassination of John F. Kennedy Jr. from the office of Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, a witness told a Senate hearing on Wednesday, setting off a fresh fight over who controls some of the government’s most sensitive records.

James Eardman III told the Senate Homeland Security Committee that the records were about to be processed for declassification when the CIA took them. His allegation immediately drew a sharp response from Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, who accused the agency of violating a presidential executive order and said she would give it 24 hours to return the documents or move to issue a subpoena.

The dispute landed in the middle of a long-running argument over access to files tied to Cold War abuses and political assassinations. Project MKUltra was a secret CIA program in the 1950s and 1960s that carried out illegal mind-control and behavior-modification experiments, and the records have remained politically sensitive for decades. The files at issue also overlap with a broader declassification push that began after Trump took office in January 2023 and ordered releases of JFK and MLK material.

Luna said the papers needed to go back to ODNI because the president had given that office direction and authority to declassify records related to RFK, MLK and JFK. She also said MKUltra documents had been specifically requested by her task force and were being used in its investigation. In a notice to CIA Director John Ratcliffe, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform asked that the files be returned to Gabbard’s office.

The conflict is more complicated because not all of the records in question are covered by the same declassification history. The article says no specific orders were issued for the MKUltra files, while a set of MLK Ultra files was released in 2018. That leaves the current custody fight centered on whether the CIA can hold documents that Luna says should be processed by ODNI and whether the oversight panel is willing to force the issue.

For now, the answer to the immediate question is straightforward: the documents are at the center of an escalating institutional standoff, and the next move belongs to the CIA. If the files are not returned within 24 hours, Luna has said she will seek a subpoena, turning a records dispute into a formal congressional confrontation.