Pres. Trump signs order to declassify JFK, RFK, MLK docs
President Donald J. Trump signs an executive order to declassify documents surrounding the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr.
WASHINGTON – Holding true to a campaign promise, President Donald Trump on Thursday ordered the release of the remaining classified documents surrounding the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy in downtown Dallas.
The executive order signed Thursday also orders the release of documents surrounding the assassinations of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
When will the JFK files be released?
What we know:
The order signed by Trump doesn’t make those records available immediately, instead it orders the Director of National Intelligence to present a plan within 15 days for the “full and complete” release of records.
The order gives the director 45 days to review records related to Robert F. Kennedy and King and present a plan for their releases.
This isn’t the first time Trump has ordered records be released.
What we don’t know:
While the executive order sets a hard deadline for the creation of a plan to release the remaining documents, it does not provide guidance on when those documents will be released.
The contents of the remaining documents are also unknown, as well as the amount of redaction those documents will contain.
The Associated Press reports that a few thousand documents remain to be declassified. Experts do not believe those documents will contain any new, earth-shattering details.
What they’re saying:
While the release of the remaining documents will make historians and conspiracy theorists happy, the former president’s grandson called the move a “political prop.”
“The truth is alot sadder than the myth — a tragedy that didn’t need to happen. Not part of an inevitable grand scheme,” JFK’s grandson Jack Schlossberg said on social media platform X. “Declassification is using JFK as a political prop, when he’s not here to punch back. There’s nothing heroic about it.”
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., son of the late senator and Trump’s Health and Human Services nominee, told the press that the order was a “great move” on the president’s part. He believes that the move will bring “more transparency” and it shows that Trump is “keeping his promise to have the government tell the truth to the American people about everything.” Kennedy has called for answers about his father and uncle’s assassinations, according to Fox News.
Following the signing of the executive order, Trump handed the pen he used to an aide who was told to give the pen to Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
King’s family released a statement on social media saying they hoped to review the files as a family before their public release.
“For us, the assassination of our father is a deeply personal family loss that we have endured over the last 56 years,” the family said. “We hope to be provided the opportunity to review the files as a family prior to its public release.”
John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992
During his first term, President Trump ordered the records be released under the John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992.
In 1992, Congress passed the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act. The act ordered the archives to disclose all information collected — some 5 million pages of material — on the assassination within 25 years — barring any exceptions designated by the president.
Trump promised to declassify and release all the documents collected with minimal redactions.
Instead, a few thousand documents were withheld during his first term. In 2018, the president said the remaining documents’ potential to cause harm to national security, law enforcement or foreign affairs outweighed the public interest.
Another batch of documents was released in 2021 by President Joe Biden. Documents were also released in 2022 and 2023.
What has already been released?
To date, more than 5 million pages of documents related to the assassination of Kennedy have been released by the national archives.
Some of the documents include memos from FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover written hours after Lee Harvey Oswald was killed in Dallas asking the government to release something to convince the public that Oswald killed John F. Kennedy.
(Original Caption) Twenty-four-year-old ex-marine Lee Harvey Oswald is shown after his arrest here on November 22. He received a cut on his forehead and blackened left eye in scuffle with officers who arrested him. Oswald, an avowed Marxist, has been
It was released two days after the president was assassinated and hours after Oswald was killed by nightclub owner Jack Ruby in the basement of the Dallas police station.
Other documents reveal theories by other government officials surrounding the assassination.
A 1975 deposition by Richard Helms states that President Lyndon B. Johnson believed Kennedy was behind the assassination of the South Vietnamese president a few weeks prior to his assassination and that the shooting was retaliation.
379570 24: Lyndon B. Johnson takes the oath of office as President of the United States, after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy November 22, 1963. (Photo by National Archive/Newsmakers)
Other documents are reports of strange calls to foreign media outlets, plans to assassinate Cuban leader Fidel Castro and information from the former Soviet Union’s intelligence agency, the KGB, that linked Johnson to the assassination.
Others are reports of Oswald’s trip to Mexico City to visit the Cuban and Soviet Union embassies there and agreements with the U.S. and Mexican governments for the United States to maintain close surveillance on the embassies.
US President John F Kennedy, First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, Texas Governor John Connally, and others smile at the crowds lining their motorcade route in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963. Minutes later the President was assassinated as his car pass
Dallas, Texas – Nov. 22, 1963
Kennedy was fatally shot in downtown Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963, as his motorcade passed in front of the Texas School Book Depository building, where 24-year-old assassin Lee Harvey Oswald had positioned himself from a sniper’s perch on the sixth floor. Two days after Kennedy was killed, nightclub owner Jack Ruby fatally shot Oswald during a jail transfer.
The Warren Commission concluded in 1964 that Oswald acted alone, firing three shots from a window in the depository. Many Americans have questioned this conclusion. In 1978, the House Select Committee on Assassinations ended its own inquiry by finding that Kennedy “was probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy.”
Five years later, King and Robert F. Kennedy were assassinated just months apart.
(Original Caption) 4/3/1968-Memphis, TN: One of the last pictures to be taken of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. — speaking to a mass rally April 3 in Memphis — when he said he would not halt his plans for a massive demonstration scheduled for April 8
Memphis, Tennessee – April 4, 1968
King was outside a motel in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968, when shots rang out. The civil rights leader, who had been in town to support striking sanitation workers, was set to lead marches and other nonviolent protests there. He died at a hospital less than an hour later.
James Earl Ray pleaded guilty to assassinating King. He later renounced that plea and maintained his innocence up until his death.
FBI documents released over the years show how the bureau wiretapped King’s telephone lines, bugged his hotel rooms and used informants to get information against him.
1968 CALIFORNIA PRIMARY: ASSASSINATION OF ROBERT F. KENNEDY — Pictured: (l-r center) Wife Ethel Kennedy, Senator Robert F. Kennedy (D-NY) before he was fatally shot on June 5, 1968 during his Presidential Campaign at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Ange
Los Angeles, California – June 6, 1968
Robert Kennedy was shot at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles just moments after delivering a victory speech on June 6, 1968.
The New York senator had just won California’s Democratic presidential primary when he was gunned down by Sirhan Sirhan.
Sirhan was convicted of first-degree murder and is serving life in prison.
The Source: Information in this articles comes from the Whitehouse, the National Archives, FOX News and the Associated Press.
