President Trump on Tuesday followed through on his campaign promise to release unredacted files on John F. Kennedy's 1963 assassination and the investigation that followed his death.
At publishing time, files are being added to the National Archives website. There are reportedly 80,000 pages in this massive document dump, and it will be some time before we know whether there's anything newsworthy contained in the files. There are currently 1,123 new entries on the site.
Were communists behind the assassination plot? Was there a second shooter? Did the Warren Commission withhold vital evidence from the American people? Did the CIA kill Kennedy? People have been asking those questions and more for more than 60 years, in part because of the secrecy and inconsistencies shrouding the investigation. Conspiracy theories have spawned scores of books and documentaries over the years, and the story has refused to die.
During his 2024 re-election campaign, Trump vowed to release all remaining classified documents related to JFK's assassination. He said in June 2024, “When I return to the White House, I will declassify and unseal all JFK assassination-related documents."
In January, Trump signed an executive order to declassify the records related to the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King Jr.
"More than 50 years after the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, and the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the Federal Government has not released to the public all of its records related to those events," the order began. "Their families and the American people deserve transparency and truth. It is in the national interest to finally release all records related to these assassinations without delay."
"I have now determined that the continued redaction and withholding of information from records pertaining to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy is not consistent with the public interest and the release of these records is long overdue," Trump added. "And although no Act of Congress directs the release of information pertaining to the assassinations of Senator Robert F. Kennedy and the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., I have determined that the release of all records in the Federal Government’s possession pertaining to each of those assassinations is also in the public interest."
Trump said at the signing, “That’s a big one. A lot of people are waiting for this for years, for decades... Everything will be revealed.”
According to the National Archives website, "Most Kennedy assassination records are already available."
"The President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection consists of more than six million pages of assassination-related records. The vast majority of this Collection has been declassified and is already available to the public either in-person or online."
In addition, "The National Archives began a concerted effort to digitize all records in the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection in 2023. Those efforts are ongoing and have been prioritized since the issuance of Executive Order 14176."
Last summer, Trump claimed that “the CIA was probably behind" the assassination.
On Monday, Trump announced that the release of the files was imminent. “They’ve been waiting for that for decades, and I said during the campaign I’d do it, and I’m a man of my word.”
In October, Trump suggested that the release would implicate “living people that were somehow involved” and said there would be a “cleansing" of some sort, fueling speculation that there has been a decades-long coverup by the U.S. government.
Trump told Fox News' Sean Hannity in January that then Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urged him not to declassify some of the files during his first term as president, citing national security concerns. Trump said on Saturday that he complied with Pompeo's recommendation at the time for "certain reasons" but admitted, "I have no idea what’s in there."
This is a developing story. We'll bring you specifics about the files once we go through them.
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