National Archives releases JFK files at Trump’s direction

The National Archives released more than 1,100 files Tuesday related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, after President Trump pledged to make the remaining documents available to the public while on the campaign trail and in office. 

The release of the documents follows an executive order Trump signed in January, just a few days after the start of his second term, to order the release of remaining federal government documents concerning the assassinations of former President Kennedy, former Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. 

Multiple analyses have found that many of the documents have already been released to the public in some form but were previously redacted.

The order called on the director of national intelligence and attorney general to present a plan within 15 days for the “full and complete release of records” related to John F. Kennedy’s assassination. 

The Kennedy assassination in November 1963 has long spurred conspiracy theories about who was responsible for killing the 35th president and if there was a wider conspiracy of others involved. Lee Harvey Oswald, a Marine veteran who identified as a Marxist, assassinated Kennedy as the president’s motorcade rode through Dealy Plaza in Dallas. 

Dallas nightclub owner Jack Ruby then shot and killed Oswald two days later while Oswald was about to be transferred to a different jail. 

The Warren Commission, formed to investigate the killings, concluded that Oswald acted alone in killing Kennedy and so did Ruby in killing Oswald. But conspiracy theories, including ones arguing involvement from the CIA, the mafia and the possibility of a second shooter, have lingered. 

Congress passed legislation in 1992 requiring all remaining government records concerning the John F. Kennedy assassination to be released by October 2017, unless certain information posed risks to national defense or intelligence. 

Trump pledged the full release of documents during his first term but issued an extension to keep certain documents private while releasing some in 2018. The National Archives released nearly 13,000 additional records in 2022 following an order from then-President Biden, but he issued another extension for others. 

The total number of documents released is 1,123, many made up of a few pages but some dozens of pages long. Trump said Monday that more than 80,000 pages in total would be released.

Experts cautioned that the final batch of documents yet to be released were unlikely to contain major revelations unknown to the public. The overwhelming majority of files related to the assassination had already been made public.

“I said during the campaign I’d do it, and I’m a man of my word,” Trump said Monday on releasing the documents. 

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said in a release that she sent a directive to the intelligence community following Trump’s order to provide all unredacted records of the JFK collection to the Archives for release. She said the records will be available on the Archives’ website or in hard copies or on analog media formats at the Archives’ facility in College Park, Md.

Beyond the 80,000 pages of records, Gabbard said additional documents withheld under court seal or for grand jury secrecy and records subject to section 6103 of the Internal Revenue Code need to be unsealed before being release. She said the Archives is working with the Justice Department to expedite the unsealing of the records, and they will be released following direction from the court.

She said much of the information is already out as grand juries from many years ago have already seen the records.

The documents included in the Archives’s release on Tuesday referenced a wide range of topics related to Kennedy’s assassination and national security considerations in the lead up to, during and after that time. Some documents make reference to sources who helped the government with intelligence gathering. 

Some reference U.S. relations with Cuba, including attempted CIA interference with dictator Fidel Castro’s regime and the Cuban Missile Crisis, with Latin America and with South Vietnam during the earlier days of the Vietnam War.

But some of the documents are still at least partially redacted, despite Trump saying that the release wouldn’t include redactions. Other documents are difficult to read as their photocopies are poor.

The release came after the anticipated release of files related to the activities of disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, who died in 2019. But the information released in the first phase of documents didn’t provide new insight, as the documents had either been made public in court cases or previously been reported on, causing some uproar among MAGA loyalists.

Updated at 11:40 a.m. EDT