Donald Trump says he’s releasing 80,000 JFK assassination files
President Donald Trump will release all classified government files on JFK’s 1963 assassination, making unredacted records public for the first time.
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President Donald Trump is set to release 80,000 files on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy — a case that still fuels conspiracy theories more than 60 years after his death.
Mr Trump announced the documents drop Tuesday (local time) while visiting the Kennedy Center, a performing arts venue in Washington named after the late
president.
“While we’re here I thought it’d be appropriate we are, tomorrow, announcing and giving all of the Kennedy files,” Mr Trump told reporters.
On January 23, Mr Trump signed an executive order calling for the declassification of the JFK assassination documents, a case that still fuels conspiracy theories more than 60 years after his death.
“People have been waiting for decades for this, and I’ve instructed my people that are responsible … put together by Tulsi Gabbard,” he said, referencing his Director of National Intelligence.
The January order also covered documents related to the 1960s assassinations of JFK’s younger brother Robert F. Kennedy — father of Mr Trump’s health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr — and civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.
While Mr Trump did not share any details as to what new information the files released will contain, he teased the sheer volume of documents to be published, telling reporters: “We have a tremendous amount of paper, you’ve got a lot of reading.”
“I don’t believe we’re going to redact anything.”
The US National Archives has released tens of thousands of records in recent years related to the November 22, 1963 assassination of then-president Kennedy — but thousands of documents have been held back, citing national security concerns.
It said at the time of the latest large-scale release, in December 2022, that 97 per cent of the Kennedy records — which total five million pages — had now been made public.
The Warren Commission that investigated the shooting of the charismatic 46-year-old president determined that it was carried out by a former Marine sharpshooter, Lee Harvey Oswald, acting alone.
However, Oswald was murdered two days later by nightclub owner Jack Ruby, spurring debate about whether Oswald was a patsy in a larger conspiracy.
Here is what we know.
WHAT ARE THE JFK DOCUMENTS?
On November 22, 1963, Lee Harvey Oswald shot JFK while he rode in a motorcade through Dallas. Two days later, Oswald was killed by nightclub owner Jack Ruby, leaving questions of Oswald’s motive and the potential existence of co-conspirators that have lingered for decades.
The mystery of each man’s motive has been the subject of widespread speculation across novels, films, TV shows, documentaries, academic research and podcasts.
The Warren Commission in 1964 found no evidence either Oswald or Ruby were part of a conspiracy to assassinate President Kennedy.
Despite this, from the assassination of JFK in 1963 to 2023, Gallup polling has consistently shown the majority of Americans believe more than one person was involved.
The US National Archives holds “more than five million pages of assassination-related records, photographs, motion pictures, sound recordings and artefacts”. Since the Warren Commission, most — but not all — of these documents have been released, some partially redacted.
Mr Trump’s January 23 executive order included the declassification of documents relating to the assassinations of JFK, his brother Robert F. Kennedy, and civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.
The order set March 8 as the final date for a plan to be presented for their release and triggered the FBI to begin a search through their records for further files.
Days later, the FBI said they discovered “approximately 2,400 newly inventoried and digitised records that were previously unrecognised as related to the JFK assassination case file”.
Associate Professor at the United States Study Centre, David Smith, said “there may not be very much new or revealing in these files, just as there wasn’t much in the last two releases”.
WHY HAVEN’T THEY ALL BEEN RELEASED ALREADY?
Multiple batches of documents relating to the JFK assassination have already been released since the Warren Commission.
By 2017, the US government had released about 88 per cent of related records in full with a further 11 per cent released with partial redactions. This left about one per cent of assassination-related documents to be released. Since 2018, tens of thousands of further documents have been released.
The documents released to date are incredibly wide-ranging. They include records of an anonymous call to the US Embassy in Canberra warning of a bounty on JFK’s head, details of Oswald’s trip to Mexico City, and investigations into the Mafia and Cuba.
In these releases, both Trump and Biden administrations redacted sections of documents due to national security concerns.
Dr Smith said according to information from US National Archives, “the most pressing reason for not releasing files is to protect the identities of witnesses — who may be old, but still alive — in unrelated organised crime investigations”.
Believers in a conspiracy around the assassination have theorised the Mafia being involved either as Cuban-hired hit men, being linked to Oswald’s killer Jack Ruby, or having shot the President as revenge against US Attorney-General RFK who spearheaded a crusade against organised crime.
After the release of documents in 2017, Mr Trump issued a memo claiming “potentially irreversible harm” to national security if still-classified information was released in full.
Mr Trump said on Tuesday of the 80,000 documents to be released, “I don’t believe we’re going to redact anything”.
The disclosure of new documents by the FBI indicates an upcoming release may involve more extensive co-operation from intelligence agencies and potentially the naming of sources.
WHY IS TRUMP FOCUSED ON THESE DOCUMENTS?
Mr Trump promised the release of further JFK files in his first term and his second campaign. He has shown interest in conspiracy theories for years and promoted them to his voter base.
In his second term as president, he is turning them into policy. In 2014 and 2016 he drew links between vaccinations and autism, despite no credible scientific evidence being found to support the claim.
The appointment of Robert F. Kennedy Jr as Health Secretary has resulted in these assertions being repeated in the US Department of Health, which will now investigate the impacts of childhood vaccines, electromagnetic radiation and processed foods.
Since 2020, Mr Trump has claimed his election loss to Joe Biden was a result of widespread voter fraud.
In 2016 he said the father of former rival Ted Cruz was seen with Oswald before the assassination, to which Cruz labelled Mr Trump a “pathological liar” and a “moron”.
Dr Smith said getting his former political rival RFK Jr to drop his “spoiler presidential bid might have been part of the reason” for Trump’s promise to release the documents.
RFK Jr ran as an independent candidate for US President in 2024, withdrawing his candidacy and endorsing Mr Trump just a month before the election.
Dr Smith said Trump is “not a classic conspiracy theorist”, as instead of making direct claims he instead points to others making the claim with words such as “many people are saying”.
“It’s conspiracy theory without the theory,” Dr Smith said.
“This allows him to create an atmosphere of suspicion about all forms of authority that are not him, further eroding the already thin layers of trust Americans have in institutions, without committing himself to conspiratorial claims that could be easily disproven.”
“Although I think he is genuinely fascinated by the JFK assassination like many people his age, this action definitely feeds into the idea that his presidency is the only presidency in living memory that Americans can trust,” he said.
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