Trump signs order directing release of JFK assassination files

President Trump signed an executive order Thursday directing the release of federal government documents related to the assassinations of former President John F. Kennedy, former Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr.

The order directs the director of national intelligence and attorney general to present a plan within 15 days for the “full and complete release of records relating to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.”

“I have now determined that the continued redaction and withholding of information from records pertaining to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy is not consistent with the public interest and the release of these records is long overdue,” the order states.

“And although no Act of Congress directs the release of information pertaining to the assassinations of Senator Robert F. Kennedy and the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., I have determined that the release of all records in the Federal Government’s possession pertaining to each of those assassinations is also in the public interest,” the order continues.

Trump promised during his 2024 campaign to declassify the remaining government documents about the JFK assassination, which has remained a point of public interest decades after the 1963 killing. Trump made the same pledge during his first term, but he ultimately kept some documents under wraps amid intelligence concerns.

John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas in 1963 by Lee Harvey Oswald. Conspiracies have persisted about CIA involvement or the existence of another shooter.

The National Archives in 2022 released nearly 13,000 new files related to the assassination of JFK, the largest dump of documents since 2018.

Lawmakers in 1992 passed legislation requiring all remaining government records about the assassination to be released by October 2017 unless they posed certain risks to national defense or intelligence. Both Trump and former President Biden issued extensions to keep certain documents private.

Experts have cautioned there are unlikely to be any major revelations in the final batch of documents to be released.

King was killed in April 1968 in Memphis.

Robert F. Kennedy was killed in 1968 by Sirhan Sirhan.

Robert F. Kennedy’s son Robert F. Kennedy Jr. backed Trump’s 2024 bid for the presidency, and has been picked by Trump as his nominee to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. In a 2023 interview, Kennedy Jr. backed a conspiracy theory about the CIA being involved in his uncle’s killing.

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