Trump makes good on promise as thousands of JFK assassination files are released: Live updates – UK Times

Despite the president’s promise earlier today, further information about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy have not yet been released.

However, newly released records will be accessible on the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection web page.

As America braces itself for thousands of declassified CIA documents, former intelligence officer John Kiriakou explains why there isn’t much light left to shed on the presidential assassination – but we should expect intriguing detail about the ‘second gunman’ theory in the killing of his brother, Robert.

If you’re wondering why not all of the the JFK Assassination records are not yet available online – it’s a question of priority.

The records collection consists of millions of pages, photographs, electronic items, and artifacts, most of which are available for public access at the National Archives at College Park, in Maryland.

The National Archives is currently prioritizing the digitization of these records to make them more widely accessible online,” according to the institution.

Since January 2024, over 700,000 pages have been digitized and made available through the National Archives Catalog.

Once the files are declassified and the White House gives the National Archives the OK to release them, they can be viewed on this webpage.

Most of the government’s records on the inquiry into Kennedy’s assassination have been released to the public and the information supports the conclusion that 24-year-old Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in assassinating Kennedy.

The documents released over the years have provided more details about Oswald and pointed to his possible motivations in carrying out the shooting. However, the information has never supported a conspiracy theory – though that has not stopped people from suggesting alternative scenarios.

A Republican-led task force in the House intends to investigate and release formerly classified information related to several major events that have spurred conspiracy theories that have lingered across the U.S. such as the assassination of former president John F. Kennedy Jr., the September 11 terrorist attacks and the prosecution of Jeffrey Epstein.

While the unreleased Kennedy assassination records may fuel conspiracy theories of a government coverup or something even more sinister, one expert believes that information in the withheld documents could be “embarrassing” to the CIA who “dropped the ball” on preventing the former president from being assassinated.

Steve Gillon, a senior faculty fellow at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center of Public Affairs, told UVA Today in 2023 that he believes the remaining classified documents will show that the CIA failed to prevent Lee Harvey Oswald from assassinating Kennedy.

“I think that they had warnings that Oswald had threatened to assassinate the president; perhaps even possessed recordings of Oswald making these threats in front of KGB agents when he was in Mexico City,” Gillon said at the time.

“But that information was never effectively relayed back to the FBI, so they’re very casual in their efforts to contact Oswald when he returned to Dallas. I think there was a breakdown in the communication between the CIA and the FBI, and as a result Oswald slipped through the fingers of American intelligence.”

Gillon hypothesized that some materials may remain classified because they contain information about the methods the U.S. used to obtain intelligence – which may be methods they still use today.

As America braces itself for thousands of declassified CIA documents, former intelligence officer John Kiriakou explains why there isn’t much light left to shed on the presidential assassination – but we should expect intriguing detail about the ‘second gunman’ theory in the killing of his brother, Robert.

Congress passed a law requiring documents containing information about John F. Kennedy’s assassination in 1992 – in part due to the rise of conspiracy theories that alleged government agents and officials were involved in the assassination.

Hoping to increase government transparency, Congress passed the Kennedy Assassination Act which required assassination records to be publicly disclosed in full no later than 25 years after it was enacted (October 26, 2017).

Those records included any government records related to the federal investigation into the 1963 assassination of Kennedy, including interview transcripts, allegations, articles, letters and more.

However, Congress included an exemption that allowed the sitting president at the time, Donald Trump, to postpone the release of others if it contained information that was harmful to national security.

Though tens of thousands of documents were released under Trump’s first administration, as well as Biden’s administration, a small portion of records have been withheld seemingly for national security reasons.

However, Trump said on Monday he directed his administration to release all the records without redactions.

The FBI said it found 2,400 new pages of documents about the assassination of John F. Kennedy following President Donald Trump’s decision to release the highly classified files.

In a statement in February, the FBI said due to “technologic advances” in the bureau’s record-keeping processes, a new search carried out in January this year following Trump’s executive order unearthed new records relating to Kennedy’s assassination.

“The FBI conducted a new records search pursuant to President Trump’s Executive Order issued on January 23, 2025, regarding the declassification of the assassination files of JFK, RFK, and MLK,” the bureau said. “The search resulted in approximately 2400 newly inventoried and digitized records that were previously unrecognized as related to the JFK assassination case file.”

The bureau did not specify what the records contain but said it was working to transfer the documents to the National Archives and Records Administration to be included in the declassification process.