Trump Orders Declassification of JFK Assassination Files

WASHINGTON — U.S. President Donald Trump ordered the declassification on Thursday of the last secret files concerning the assassination of late U.S. President John F. Kennedy, a case that has continued to fuel conspiracy theories more than 60 years after his tragic death.

Trump signed an executive order that will also release documents regarding the 1960s assassinations of JFK’s younger brother, Robert F. Kennedy, and the civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. “That’s a big one, huh? A lot of people have been waiting for this for years, for decades,” Trump stated to reporters as he signed the order in the Oval Office of the White House.

After signing the order, Trump handed the pen he used to an aide, saying, “Give that to RFK Jr.,” referencing JFK’s nephew and the current president’s nominee for secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.

The executive order mandates the “full and complete release” of the JFK files, eliminating the redactions that Trump accepted back in 2017 when most of the documents were released. “It is in the national interest to finally release all records related to these assassinations without delay,” the order emphasizes.

Trump had previously promised to release the last of the files, most recently during his inauguration on Monday. The U.S. National Archives has made tens of thousands of records public in recent years related to the November 22, 1963, assassination of President Kennedy but retained thousands due to national security concerns. At the time of the latest large-scale release in December 2022, it was stated that 97% of the Kennedy records, totaling 5 million pages, had now been made public.

The Warren Commission, which investigated the assassination of the charismatic 46-year-old president, concluded that it was carried out by former Marine sharpshooter Lee Harvey Oswald, acting alone. However, this formal conclusion has done little to quell speculation about a more sinister plot behind Kennedy’s murder in Dallas, Texas, with the slow release of government files adding fuel to various conspiracy theories.

A Gesture to RFK Jr.

Trump’s move is also a gesture to one of the most prominent advocates of these conspiracies — Robert F. Kennedy Jr. RFK Jr. stated in 2023 that there is “overwhelming evidence the CIA was involved” in his uncle JFK’s murder, along with “very convincing” evidence suggesting the agency was also behind the 1968 assassination of his father, Robert F. Kennedy. The former attorney general was killed while campaigning for the Democratic nomination for president. Sirhan Sirhan, a Palestinian-born Jordanian, was convicted of his murder.

Thousands of JFK assassination-related documents from the National Archives were released during Trump’s first term in office, though some were withheld due to national security grounds. Then-President Joe Biden noted at the time of the December 2022 document release that a “limited” number of files would continue to be withheld at the request of unspecified “agencies.” Previous requests to keep documents under wraps have come from the CIA and FBI.

Scholars studying Kennedy have indicated that the documents still retained by the archives are unlikely to contain any bombshell revelations or put to rest the rampant conspiracy theories surrounding the assassination of the 35th U.S. president. Oswald, who had at one point defected to the Soviet Union, was killed two days after killing Kennedy by nightclub owner Jack Ruby as he was being transferred from the city jail.

Hundreds of books and films, such as the 1991 Oliver Stone movie “JFK,” have fueled the conspiracy industry, pointing accusations at Cold War adversaries like Russia or Cuba, the Mafia, and even Kennedy’s vice president, Lyndon Johnson. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in April 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee, with James Earl Ray convicted of the murder and dying in prison in 1998, although King’s children have expressed doubts in the past regarding Ray’s role as the assassin.