Congress has reopened one of the darkest chapters in U.S. intelligence history—and the testimony was explosive.
During a House Oversight hearing led by Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, lawmakers examined the CIA’s notorious MKULTRA program, detailing evidence of destroyed records, alleged obstruction of oversight, newly uncovered documents, and testimony from a former CIA officer who said he does not believe the research ever truly ended.
Witnesses also discussed allegations involving secret facilities in Germany, the removal of classified records during declassification efforts, and historical documents describing experiments involving memory manipulation.
The hearing raised new questions about what Congress knew, what was concealed for decades, and whether modern advances in AI and neuroscience have revived capabilities once associated with MKULTRA.
Explosive testimony before the House Oversight Committee’s Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets reveals decades of CIA crimes against unwitting Americans, evidence destruction, secret torture sites in Germany, and a continuing deep state effort to hide the truth from Congress and the American people.
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) chaired a powerful hearing Tuesday titled “Mind Control and Accountability: Uncovering the Truth of the CIA’s MKULTRA Experiments,” dropping bombshell after bombshell on one of the darkest chapters in American intelligence history.
The CIA’s infamous MKULTRA program, which ran from 1953 to 1973, subjected countless unwitting victims, including American citizens, hospital patients, prisoners, and veterans, to LSD, psychological torture, electroshock, hypnosis, and sensory deprivation in a quest for mind control techniques.
In her opening remarks, Luna called the program “crimes committed by the Central Intelligence Agency against American citizens” and “crimes against humanity.”
“This was a deliberate, systematic governmental operation… authorized by the very top of U.S. intelligence apparatus,” Luna said.
She detailed how CIA Director Richard Helms personally ordered the destruction of MKULTRA records in 1973 as he left office. Sidney Gottlieb and his team spent an entire day burning 152 files.
Gottlieb then had his personal papers destroyed. The head of the CIA’s own records center protested in writing and was overruled.
“That is obstruction of justice. That is criminal destruction of federal records,” Luna stated. No one went to prison. No victims received formal compensation.
The CIA long claimed the program was a “failure,” but Luna and lawmakers argue Congress and the American people were intentionally misled for over 50 years.
WATCH:
Luna announced that the CIA is now working to declassify newly discovered documents tied to what she described as a previously unknown “forgery program.”
CIA whistleblower and former officer James Erdman III testified that approximately 40 boxes of sensitive records were removed from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) during declassification review efforts. This echoes his explosive May 2026 testimony before the Senate Homeland Security Committee, which The Gateway Pundit reported on at the time.
As we previously detailed, Erdman testified that the CIA “took back 40 boxes of JFK files and MKULTRA files being processed for declassification by DNI Tulsi Gabbard” in what he described as “documented efforts to circumvent oversight.”
Rep. Luna and House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) responded by firing off a preservation letter demanding all records be preserved and returned. Luna later confirmed on X that the MKULTRA documents were specifically requested by her Task Force for its investigation.
Luna clarified that the incident was “not a raid,” but the removal of records still raises serious questions about the CIA’s willingness to comply with lawful oversight and declassification directives.
Luna also revealed she is investigating disturbing new allegations of a CIA facility in Germany where MKULTRA victims were allegedly tortured.
She questioned witnesses about potential locations of remains and announced plans to reach out to the German government for assistance, including possible law enforcement involvement to locate and identify victims.
A witness at the hearing claimed to have identified what may have been a secret CIA prison or black site in Germany connected to these experiments. Luna called the entire program “criminal in nature” and “horrifying,” noting it went “unvetted, unchecked and that there was no accountability.”
Adding to the alarm, a former CIA officer testified during the hearing that “I don’t believe that the research stopped” on MKULTRA.
One of the most disturbing revelations came from historical documents referenced during the hearing. A participant in the original program documented the ability to replace true memories with false ones without the subject’s knowledge.
The exact description: “It’s feasible to take the memory of a definite event in the life of an individual, and through hypnotic suggestion, bring about the subsequent conscious recall to the effect that this event never actually took place. But that a different fictional event actually did occur.”
If the U.S. government could do this in the 1950s, the question hanging over the room was obvious. What can they do now with AI, brain-computer interfaces, and directed energy tools?
Author and journalist Stephen Kinzer, who has extensively studied the program and its leader Sidney Gottlieb, warned that Gottlieb effectively held “a license to kill” issued by the U.S. government. Kinzer described how the CIA used “cut-outs” – universities and institutions – to conduct research while keeping its own involvement hidden.
He then delivered the core warning for today: “There have been enormous advances in cyber technology, neuroscience, and artificial intelligence. Covert agencies may have access to tools for mind control that Sidney Gottlieb could not have imagined.”
O’Neill agreed. The massive investment in time, money, and research made it unlikely the capabilities were simply abandoned. The technology they built was too valuable.
"MK Ultra is REAL and the CIA committed Crimes Against Humanity with it."
.
That has been known for many years - decades! All that can be done now is to add additional evidence - you know, add more logs to a raging fire. What's REALLY important now is, (1) Will anyone ever be held accountable? (2) Will their crimes ever end?
The answers are obvious: NO and NO!! They will wrap themselves with the flag, invoke "national security", and will thus escape all accountability while being fully funded into the foreseeable future.
That is the only reasonable expectation when living in a country where the Rule of Law has departed.
I've asked it before and I'll ask it again, is there such a thing as a living "former CIA officer"?
"MK Ultra is REAL and the CIA committed Crimes Against Humanity with it."
.
That has been known for many years - decades! All that can be done now is to add additional evidence - you know, add more logs to a raging fire. What's REALLY important now is, (1) Will anyone ever be held accountable? (2) Will their crimes ever end?
The answers are obvious: NO and NO!! They will wrap themselves with the flag, invoke "national security", and will thus escape all accountability while being fully funded into the foreseeable future.
That is the only reasonable expectation when living in a country where the Rule of Law has departed.