The National Archives on Tuesday released a massive tranche of documents pertaining to the assassination of former President John F. Kennedy, after President Donald Trump vowed “all” records surrounding the JFK assassination would be publicly released.
President Donald Trump talks to the media in the Grand Foyer during a tour at the John F. Kennedy ... [+]
The National Archives said the documents, released as more than 1,100 PDF files, comprise “all records previously withheld for classification that are part of the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection.”
Trump said Monday during a visit to the Kennedy Center in Washington he would make public about 80,000 pages of files, telling reporters “people have been waiting decades for this.”
Trump said “I don’t believe we’re going to redact anything,” adding that Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard was leading the effort to organize the release of the records.
Trump during his first term also promised he would release the files detailing government information on Kennedy’s 1963 assassination, and made some public but bowed to security concerns in withholding others.
About 98% of the collection, which contains over 5 million pages of records, has already been made public and is housed at the National Archives, pursuant to the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992, which required all of the files to be publicly released by 2017, barring exceptions for national security concerns.
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Researchers previously estimated between 3,000 and 4,000 documents, some with complete or partial redactions, have not been released. The FBI said in February it discovered 2,400 new records related to Kennedy’s assassination as officials worked to fulfill Trump’s executive order. Experts have said it’s unlikely the remaining records would contain any smoking gun that changes the government’s findings. The latest document releases during Trump’s and former President Joe Biden’s presidencies primarily surrounded the CIA’s activities at the time, including some surveillance of assassin Lee Harvey Oswald. Some of the documents that remain hidden contain information about a CIA agent, George Joannides, who came into contact with Oswald months before Kennedy was shot, NBC reported, citing researchers at the Mary Ferrell Foundation, a nonprofit that keeps a public database of government records on Kennedy’s assassination.
Trump signed an executive order on the first day of his second term ordering government documents related to the assassinations of Kennedy, his brother and former attorney general Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. to be made public.
Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963, by 24-year-old Lee Harvey Oswald, who was shot and killed two days later while he was being transferred to a new a jail. The Warren Commission that investigated the killing under President Lyndon B. Johnson concluded that Oswald acted alone, and there is no other verified evidence to suggest the contrary, though conspiracies persist about Kennedy’s death. A 2013 Gallup survey, taken in tandem with the 50th anniversary of Kennedy’s death, found 61% of Americans believe Oswald did not act alone.
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Will Trump Release The Remaining Files On JFK’s Assassination? Here’s What He’s Said. (Forbes)