Trump administration releases new documents on JFK assassination
The Trump administration on March 18 (US time) released thousands of documents related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, which were previously considered classified.
Many of the JFK assassination files have been released before, including 13,000 documents released by the Biden administration. However, many of the documents released this time were previously redacted.
Earlier, Mr. Trump said on March 17 that “people have waited decades” to see 80,000 pages of documents related to the Kennedy assassination. Shortly after taking office, he signed an executive order requiring the public release of thousands of records related to the assassinations of Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King Jr.
The documents were posted on the National Archives website on the evening of March 18. However, it may take some time before JFK assassination researchers can review the 1,123 newly released documents, as they are identified only by file numbers without specific descriptions.
According to an expert who has studied many of the documents, there is no indication that these files contain shocking information.
Tom Samoluk, former Deputy Director of the Assassination Records Review Commission—a government panel established in the 1990s to examine documents related to the assassination—and his team reviewed a large volume of documents from 1994 to 1998 for publication.
According to him, the documents he reviewed did not change the current conclusion about the Kennedy assassination: that Lee Harvey Oswald was the sole gunman responsible for the president's death.
“The set of documents that we looked at — most of which are public, some of which are still fully or partially sealed — if these are the documents that are being talked about, there would be no ‘shock evidence,’” he said in a phone interview with CNN.
“If there was anything really important to the assassination, the Review Commission would have released it in the mid-1990s. So one can imagine what these documents might be.”
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said in a statement that the files include “approximately 80,000 pages of previously classified documents that will now be released without redactions.”
She added that there are still some documents that are being withheld by court order or related to grand jury secrecy, as well as records covered by Internal Revenue Code section 6103, that must be declassified before they can be released. The National Archives is working with the Justice Department to expedite that process.
Larry Sabato, political scientist at the University of Virginia and author ofThe Kennedy Half-Century: The Presidency, Assassination, and Lasting Legacy of John F. Kennedy(The Kennedy Half Century: The Presidency, Assassination, and Enduring Legacy of John F. Kennedy), warns that the public may be disappointed by the lack of important revelations.
“I would say we will learn some things,” Sabato said. “But it may not be related to the Kennedy assassination. Anyone who expects to solve the case after 61 years will be sorely disappointed.”
The Kennedy assassination has long been the subject of conspiracy theories, including ones that Mr. Trump has mentioned. That is why the Review Commission, to which Samoluk belonged, was established to assess whether assassination records could be made public.
Samoluk admitted that he had not seen all the documents that could be released.
Last month, for example, the FBI said it discovered about 2,400 new documents related to the JFK assassination in a records search under an executive order by President Trump.
Samoluk also said there may be other records in government agencies that have not been released, creating a new pool of documents that his committee has not yet accessed.
He also said there could still be interesting points in the remaining documents that could help fill in gaps in existing knowledge - including information from the CIA about Oswald's activities before November 22, 1963.
In 2023, the US National Archives completed its review of classified documents related to the assassination, with 99% of the records released, according to CNN.
President Joe Biden then signed a memorandum confirming that the review process had been completed and all documents eligible for declassification had been made public – in line with the previously set deadline.
Despite previous pledges from multiple presidents, including Trump, some documents remain withheld by the CIA, Pentagon and State Department. The primary reason these documents remain classified is to protect the identities of secret sources who are still alive or may be alive, as well as to protect intelligence methods.
During his first term, Mr. Trump agreed not to release all files related to the Kennedy assassination at the request of national security agencies. However, during the 2024 campaign, Mr. Trump vowed to make the remaining documents public.