US President Donald Trump has ordered the release of thousands of classified government documents about the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy, which has fueled conspiracy theories for decades.
The executive order Trump signed Thursday also aims to identify remaining federal records related to the assassinations of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy. Kennedy and Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. From his second term.
Speaking to reporters, Trump said, “Everything will be revealed.”
Trump promised during his re-election campaign to go public with the last batches of still-resolved documents surrounding the assassination of President Kennedy in Dallas, which have turned people on for decades. He made a similar pledge during his first term, but eventually launched into a plea for the CIA and FBI to keep certain documents withheld.
Trump nominated Kennedy’s nephew, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., to be Secretary of Health in his new administration. Kennedy, whose father, Robert F. Kennedy, was assassinated. Kennedy in 1968 while running for president and said he was not convinced that a lone gunman was solely responsible for the assassination of his uncle, President Kennedy, in 1963.
The order directs the Director of National Intelligence and the Attorney General to develop a plan within 15 days to classify records of John F. Kennedy. Kennedy for the remaining cases, and within 45 days for the other two cases. It was unclear when the records would actually be released.
Get national news
For news affecting Canada and around the world, sign up for breaking news alerts delivered live when they happen.
Trump handed the pen used for the signature to an aide and instructed him to give it to Robert F. Kennedy. kennedy jr.
Only a few thousand of the millions of government records related to the assassination of President Kennedy have not yet been fully declassified. And although many who have studied what has been released so far say that the public should not expect any earth-shattering revelations, there is still keen interest in the details surrounding the assassination and the events surrounding it.
Larry J. said: Sabato, director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics and author of “The Kennedy Half-Century.” This is what researchers are looking for. Now, you don’t find it, but it is possible that it exists.”
Kennedy was fatally shot in downtown Dallas on November 22, 1963, as his motorcade passed by the Texas School Book Depository Building, where assassin Lee Harvey Oswald placed 24-year-old Lee Harvey Oswald from a sniper’s perch on the sixth floor. Two days after Kennedy was killed, Jack Ruby, a nightclub owner, shot Oswald during a prison transport.
In the early 1990s, the federal government mandated that all documents related to the assassination be placed in a single collection at the National Archives and Records Administration. It was necessary to open a collection of more than 5 million records by 2017, excluding any exemptions specified by the president.
During his first term, Trump boasted that he would allow all records remaining on the president’s assassination to be released, but he ended up returning some due to what he called potential harm to national security. And while the files have continued under President Joe Biden, some remain unseen.
Most researchers agree that roughly 3,000 records have not yet been released, either in whole or in part, many of those that originated with the CIA, said Sabato, who trains student researchers to comb through documents.
Documents released over the past few years provide details of the way intelligence services operated at the time, and include CIA cables and memos discussing Oswald’s visits to the Soviet and Cuban embassies during a trip to Mexico City just weeks before the assassination. The former Marine had previously defected to the Soviet Union before returning to Texas.
There are still some documents in the collection although researchers do not believe the president will be able to release them. About 500 documents, including tax returns, were not subject to the 2017 disclosure requirements. Researchers note that the documents may have been destroyed over the decades.
Copied 2025 The Canadian Press
