Having recently discovered this Thursday's legal deadline for the National Archives's mandated release of JFK assassination records that the CIA, FBI, and other agencies have succeeded in keeping secret for more than 50 years, the mainstream media is repeatedly emphasizing that the records will contain no "smoking guns."

Well, duh! As I stated in my article yesterday, "I Predict Trump Will Continue the CIA's JFK Assassination Cover-Up," ever since the CIA began specializing in assassinations, one of its principal rules has been never to put any reference to a covert state-sponsored assassination into writing. Given such, it's no big revelation that the records that are set to be released — assuming that President Trump doesn't grant the CIA's request to keep them secret — will not contain a videotaped confession, a memorandum detailing how the assassination was to be carried out and covered up, or any other such "smoking gun" type of evidence.

However, it is a virtual certainty that the tens of thousands of records will contain bits of circumstantial evidence that further fill in the mosaic that the assassination of President Kennedy was one of the CIA's regime-change operations, no different in principle from those carried out in the 1950s-1970s in such countries as Iran, Guatemala, Congo, Cuba, and Chile.

The problem is that mainstream reporters and commentators, generally speaking, have no understanding of or appreciation for the importance and relevance of circumstantial evidence. To them, all that matters is direct evidence, such as a videotaped confession or a signed memorandum showing how the assassination was carried out.

What is circumstantial evidence? The definition provided by Wikipedia is as good as any other:

Circumstantial evidence is evidence that relies on an inference to connect it to a conclusion of fact — like a fingerprint at the scene of a crime. By contrast, direct evidence supports the truth of an assertion directly — i.e., without need for any additional evidence or inference.

It is worth noting that courts consider circumstantial evidence to be of equal value to direct evidence.

When the mainstream media refers to the term of Assassination Records Review Board in the 1990s, they always repeat the same mantra — that the ARRB found no "smoking guns." They are, again, referring to direct evidence and not circumstantial evidence.

An example of circumstantial evidence was the testimony of Saundra Spencer, who was the petty officer in charge of the White House Laboratory at the Naval Photographic Center in Washington, D.C. As such, she worked closely with the Kennedy White House, including on highly classified matters.

It would be virtually impossible to find a more credible witness than Saundra Spencer. I think that everyone, including the Pentagon and the CIA, would attest to her integrity and veracity.

Spencer gave sworn testimony before the ARRB. The mainstream media has never devoted any attention to her testimony. Why? Because her testimony did not constitute direct evidence. That is, since she didn't testify that she saw who shot the president or some other type of direct "smoking gun" testimony, the mainstream media has ignored what she told the ARRB.