Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets

The House Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets is the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee’s dedicated panel for declassification-sensitive oversight and hearing work.¹² The committee lists this task force under its official subcommittees, with Anna Paulina Luna named as chair and Jasmine Crockett as ranking member.¹ Chairman Comer’s February 11, 2025 announcement formally created the task force, assigned task-force leadership, and stated that it would examine federal secrecy in the public interest.³ House Rule 14 gives the committee authority to appoint task forces like this one and applies committee hearing rules to task-force proceedings.² The February task-force letters show the authorized scope, including records related to the assassinations of JFK, RFK, and MLK Jr. and Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena, with room for additional chairman-directed subjects.⁴

  Mandate

The task force’s mandate in 2025-26 is centered on record access, declassification standards, and transparency accountability through active hearings and agency briefings.³⁴ Its published hearing record demonstrates a broad scope: a declassification-focused JFK hearing path beginning in spring 2025, an UAP-focused transparency hearing in September, and a declassified MLK records hearing in early 2026.⁵⁶⁷⁸ The public mandate language directly references EO 14176 and the need to move declassification from partial release toward wider public access and oversight reporting.⁴

  Hearing role

The task force is the named hearing body on Oversight’s official hearing pages for its subject-line sessions, including the JFK Files, UAP, and MLK records hearings.⁵⁶⁷⁸ At the September 9, 2025 UAP hearing, witnesses addressed federal transparency on UAP reporting, AARO performance, and whistleblower protections within an official hearing framework.⁶⁹ On September 2025 and January 2026 timelines, hearing materials show this same task force body running records-focused oversight events in HVC-210 across assassination and civil-rights-era materials, confirming that its 2025-26 scope spans both historical and contemporary federal-record questions.⁷⁸¹⁰⁵

  Source trail

To trace official rationale into archival record, start with the February 11 establishment release, then follow the signed task-force letters and House Rule 14 text for structural authority.³⁴² Then use each Oversight hearing page to verify session titles, dates, location, witnesses, and materials for the task force-led hearings.⁵⁶⁷⁸ For committee-record corroboration, use the linked Congress.gov hearing text and metadata for the 2025-26 task force meetings.¹⁰ This path keeps the task force timeline rooted in primary House and congressional committee materials rather than secondary summaries.¹³⁴

  References

  References

1. oversight.house.gov ↩ ↩² ↩³

2. oversight.house.gov ↩ ↩² ↩³

3. oversight.house.gov ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

4. oversight.house.gov ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

5. oversight.house.gov ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

6. oversight.house.gov ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

7. oversight.house.gov ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

8. oversight.house.gov ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

9. oversight.house.gov ↩

10. congress.gov ↩ ↩²