Does a genuine U.S. government document show that Rafael Cruz, Sen. Ted Cruz's father, was involved in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy? No, that's not true: The document is fake. The real record contains a report from Swiss police regarding Lee Harvey Oswald's plan to study at a school in Switzerland.
The document appeared in a post (archived here) on X on January 23, 2025. The post included two versions of the alleged document. Both were redacted, but one showed more of the report than the other. The post read:
⚠️Lee Harvey Oswald was framed for the JFK assassination AND he knew the attacker by both name and alias.
This is what the post looked like on social media at the time of writing:
(Source: X screenshot taken on Fri Jan 24 11:03:21 2025 UTC)
The less-redacted document reads:
I tried to tell Cruz not to do it, but he told me, 'If you interfere with the Zodiac's plan, I'll have you taken care of, you dirty commie. Whatever you do, don't let Ted run for Senate! I have information that will lead to the arrest of Hillary Clinton
It is a forged document. The real record, which is part of the John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection, is public and can be seen here (archived here) and below:
(Source: archives.gov screenshot taken on Fri Jan 24 12:04:07 2025 UTC)
As evidenced by the genuine document, this part of the record contains a report from Swiss police regarding Oswald's plan to study at a school in Switzerland. There is no reference to anyone named Cruz.
According to the FBI (archived here), Oswald acted alone when he shot and killed Kennedy in Dallas on November 22, 1963.
In 2016, the National Enquirer published what it said was a photograph showing Oswald with Rafael Cruz, the father of Ted Cruz, the Texas senator who was then running against Donald Trump to be the Republican candidate for president.
In April 2024, David Pecker, the former publisher of the National Enquirer, testified under oath (archived here) that the tabloid faked the photo and made up the story.
The fake document on X was posted on the same day that President Trump issued an executive order (archived here) declassifying all records related to the assassinations of Kennedy, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Lead Stories has debunked claims about the JFK assassination before. See here for a collection of those stories.
