Micky Dolenz, last surviving member of The Monkees, suing FBI

Micky Dolenz, the final surviving member of the enduring Sixties-era, made-for-TV pop band The Monkees, is suing the FBI for information indicating the company was monitoring the group, CBS Los Angeles stories.

The closely redacted file from 1967, first reported on by Rolling Stone, seems to indicate that the FBI was investigating the band for allegedly spreading anti-Vietnam struggle messaging throughout their exhibits. 

In one part of the file, an unnamed FBI supply who attended a live performance says:

“…During the live performance, subliminal messages have been depicted on the display, which … constituted left wing improvements of a political nature…”

Dolenz’ lawyer, Mark Zaid, well-known for representing the whistleblower throughout former President Donald Trump’s Ukraine scandal, considers himself an enormous fan of the Monkees, which helped set off his curiosity on this case. 

“Understand that The Monkees existed in a really tumultuous time period within the United States,” Zaid informed CBS L.A. “Obviously, Micky nonetheless performs at this time and The Monkees — till others handed away — have been all nonetheless performing, however they got here to the world’s consideration in 1966 or so, after we have been in Vietnam and the hippies have gotten massive and the drug tradition.” 

When he discovered of the FBI file on the band, Zaid says, he filed a Freedom of Information request, however that the request went unanswered for a number of months. So, he launched the lawsuit to search out out precisely what the FBI had on the group.

 “Some informant, in all probability an FBI agent who wished to take their child to The Monkees live performance, went to The Monkees present in, I feel, San Francisco, and filed a report again to the FBI in regards to the anti-war protest motion. Why was the FBI surveilling The Monkees, whether or not the person members or the band, what does it say? And what does it say, bigger, in regards to the actions of the FBI in the course of the Sixties,” Zaid remarked. 

The group had 4 No. 1 albums in 1967, an achievement no different band has matched to this present day.

CBS L.A. reached out to the Department of Justice after hours in regards to the lawsuit and hasn’t heard again but.