Donald Trump has recently released a stockpile of largely unredacted JFK files related to the assassination of the former President. While the files didn’t really include anything unexpected, they surely brought danger to many Americans’ identities.
According to The Washington Post‘s report on Thursday, around 400 social security numbers belonging to congressional staffers and others have been leaked through these files.
SSNs can lead to major identity theft, as they can be used to apply for loans, open bank accounts, and even get credit cards, which would potentially mess up one’s personal finances with a massive hike in debt. Especially if the social security numbers fall into the wrong hands, such as a crime syndicate, authorities could end up in a maze before they can trace the locations or even receive the theft reports.
While many of the SSNs included in these JFK assassination files were released before, there were redactions. But now, the Trump administration has made them public, breaching privacy protections. The leaked numbers included members of the 1975 Senate Church Committee and House Select Committee in relation to the investigations of former President John F. Kennedy’s assassination.
According to The Washington Post, the numbers belong to the former U.S. ambassador, former assistant secretary of state, former Army officer, and even Joseph diGenova, who was Donald Trump‘s campaign lawyer. As per the Post, some of the SSNs were recorded more than once in the unredacted files.
Joseph diGenova wasn’t happy at all with the breach as he slammed the administration for being “unprofessional.” Speaking with The Washington Post, he stated that the leak is “absolutely outrageous, [and] sloppy.”
“It not only means identity theft, but I’ve had threats against me … there are dangerous nuts out there,” he lamented. While talking to the Associated Press, the former campaign lawyer emphasized that the numbers shouldn’t have been exposed like this. “I think it’s the result of incompetent people doing the reviewing. The people who reviewed these documents did not do their job.”
Notably, the leaked information about him was included in documents related to his work for the Senate Select Committee, that focuses on the investigation of government officials’ abuses of power in the 1970s. What an irony!
Joseph now plans on filing lawsuit against the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration for breaching privacy laws, according to AP.
Would you look at that, @pambondi? Your sloppy release of poor Joe DiGenova’s Social Security number is one reason Judge Hollander found the unions had standing in DOGE Social Security case.
It’s fuckups like that which’ll lose you cases. https://t.co/Y59mg0LGYb pic.twitter.com/gPIZOEFK6j
— emptywheel (check) (@emptywheel) March 20, 2025
Meanwhile, Mary Ellen Callahan, former chief privacy officer at the Department of Homeland Security, noted, “Social Security is literally the keys to the kingdom to everybody. It’s absolutely a Privacy Act violation.”
Following the massive backlash, the White House released a statement. On Thursday, officials announced that a plan is in action to assist those whose personal information was exposed through the JFK files. As reported by the Associated Press, the Trump administration also plans to arrange new social security numbers for those affected by the release.
Yup. According to Rachel Maddow, the JFK documents released included the names, dates & places of birth, social security numbers & more of hundreds of high ranking officials in Washington. Now new social security #’s have to be issued along with free credit monitoring. Bhahahaha! pic.twitter.com/B4G7BqQJ1t
— 💟🇨🇦DeeBee🇨🇦💟 (@LiberalWoe_man) March 21, 2025
While the President continues to face heat over the leak, his White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed that “proactive” steps are being taken to protect the congressional staffers and others whose information was leaked.
Trump himself addressed why there wasn’t any redaction when it came to personal information: “People have been waiting for decades for this. We have a tremendous amount of paper. You’ve got a lot of reading. I don’t believe we’re going to redact anything.”
Although the Republican leader promised to publish 80,000 pages related to the assassination of Kennedy, only 60,000 were made public on Tuesday through the National Archives website. On the other hand, some critics said that only one-third of the available records were published by the Trump administration.
