Donald Trump has fulfilled a long-standing promise by declassifying and releasing all remaining JFK assassination records, in an effort to shed light on one of history’s enduring mysteries.
The US president said nothing will be redacted from the documents about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
The previously classified documents are now accessible online via the National Archives website or in person at the National Archives at College Park, Maryland.
The National Archives’ collection includes over 6 million pages of records, photographs, motion pictures, sound recordings, and artifacts related to the assassination, with the vast majority already released to the public.
Trump told reporters Monday that his administration will be releasing 80,000 files after Justice Department lawyers spent hours scouring them.
“We have a tremendous amount of paper. You’ve got a lot of reading,” Trump said at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington DC.
The documents also included references to various conspiracy theories suggesting that Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald left the Soviet Union in 1962 intent on assassinating the popular young president.
Christopher Robinson, an official in the National Security Division, informed staff that every lawyer in the Operations Section of the Office of Intelligence had been instructed to review 400 to 500 documents each, according to a Monday evening email seen by Reuters.
The office’s attorneys usually deal with national security cases.
Robinson set a Tuesday noon deadline for the review, which covers records related to the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., and potentially others.
JFK was shot to death by Lee Harvey Oswald, 24, while travelling in an open-top car parade in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963.
The shooting has long been the subject of multiple conspiracies as questions have been raised over the years about the mob’s role as well as speculation over the CIA’s involvement in JFK’s death.
Decades of mystery
The assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas, remains one of the most heavily scrutinized events in American history.
Despite the official conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in shooting the president, numerous questions and conspiracy theories have persisted for over six decades, casting a shadow of mystery over his death.
At the heart of the mystery is the question of whether Oswald truly acted alone.
While the Warren Commission concluded that Oswald fired three shots from the Texas School Book Depository, some argue that the circumstances surrounding Kennedy’s murder point to the involvement of other individuals or groups.
The so-called “grassy knoll” theory, which suggests that there was a second shooter, has been a central piece of this debate, with eyewitnesses and later analysis pointing to possible gunfire coming from an area near the knoll.
Over the years, conspiracy theories have multiplied, implicating various parties including the CIA, the mafia, and even elements of the U.S. government.
Some have speculated that Kennedy’s handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis or his stance on the Vietnam War might have led to a covert operation to eliminate him.
Others suggest that powerful interests, such as the military-industrial complex, feared Kennedy’s approach to Cold War diplomacy and sought to remove him from office.
In addition to the questions about the assassination itself, there are inconsistencies surrounding the investigation.
For example, key documents, photographs, and pieces of evidence were either lost, destroyed, or kept from public view for years, fuelling suspicions about a cover-up.
Read our JFK files blog for the latest updates…
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Why some JFK files were previously held back
Despite an early pledge to release all JFK records, Trump delayed full disclosure in 2017, citing concerns over national security.
While some documents were released under President Joe Biden, others remained heavily redacted or classified — until now.
Larry Sabato, an expert on Kennedy’s assassination, noted that some of the most sensitive files involve CIA activity, Oswald’s links to Cuba, and Cold War-era intelligence operations.
With this latest release, investigators hope to finally uncover what has been hidden for decades — but whether any of it changes history is still uncertain.
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JFK files reveal U.S. concerns about Fidel Castro’s role in Latin America
Newly released Department of Defense documents from 1963 shed light on Cold War tensions, particularly regarding Fidel Castro and his involvement in Latin America.
One report suggests that while Castro was unlikely to provoke a direct war with the U.S., he “might intensify his support of subversive forces in Latin America.”
The files also touch on the U.S. efforts to counter Cuba’s influence, reflecting the global power struggle between Washington and Havana at the height of the Cold War.
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JFK Assassination Files Could Reveal CIA Knew More About Oswald
One lingering question surrounding JFK’s assassination has been what the CIA knew about Lee Harvey Oswald before the killing — and the newly released documents may provide answers.
The files reference Oswald’s visits to Mexico City just six weeks before Kennedy’s murder, including a trip to the Soviet embassy.
While the CIA has denied involvement, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s Health and Human Services Secretary, has long claimed that the agency was connected to his uncle’s death — an allegation the CIA has called baseless.
Arrest card of Lee Harvey Oswald on November 23, 1963, the day after he assassinated United States President John F. KennedyCredit: Alamy
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Files contain CIA memo on Soviet wives and Oswald’s motive
Among the declassified documents released under Donald Trump’s order, one CIA memo reveals a 1964 interview with an agency employee discussing State Department and CIA inconsistencies related to marriages between Soviet women and American men.
Other documents reference theories that Lee Harvey Oswald left the Soviet Union in 1962 with the intention of assassinating Kennedy—fueling speculation about his motives.
Despite the new files, experts doubt they will alter the official conclusion that Oswald acted alone.
“People expecting big things are almost certain to be disappointed,” said Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia.
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In pictures: the John F. Kennedy files released by Trump
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Trump promises more: MLK and RFK files to follow
In addition to releasing the JFK assassination files, Donald Trump has vowed to declassify records on the deaths of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy, both assassinated in 1968.
Trump has “allowed more time” for officials to prepare a plan for their release, ensuring that the process follows national security guidelines.
While some expect major revelations, others remain skeptical.
“It’s going to be very interesting,” Trump said.
“People have been waiting for decades for this.”
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RFK Jr. applauds Trump for releasing JFK files
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a long-time critic of the government’s secrecy around his uncle’s assassination, has praised Donald Trump’s order to declassify the remaining JFK files.
“The 60-year strategy of lies and secrecy, disinformation, censorship, and defamation employed by Intel officials to obscure and suppress troubling facts about J.F.K.’s assassination has provided the playbook for a series of subsequent crises,” Kennedy posted on X.
Kennedy has long questioned the Warren Commission’s findings, arguing that the evidence is “very, very convincing” that there was more than one gunman.
In his 2024 presidential run, he claimed there was “overwhelming evidence” that the CIA was involved.
Despite the release, many of the files were already public, with the National Archives estimating 99% of records had been made available before.
But Kennedy remains convinced that the remaining files hold crucial missing answers.
Meanwhile, JFK’s grandson Jack Schlossberg dismissed the declassification as a political stunt, posting: “Declassification is using JFK as a political prop, when he’s not here to punch back.”
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Some documents are heavily redacted
President Trump had insisted that the files – released on Tuesday by the National Archives – were not going to be redacted.
He had told officials “no redactions” before the release.
But some of the documents seen by The Sun are heavily redacted.
One CIA case file states it is “a copy of a rundown of the [REDACTED] case”.
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Thousands of JFK files released
Trump has released thousands of pages of files relating to JFK’s assassination – many of which are typewritten reports and handwritten notes.
It’s unclear at the moment how many of them are new or what they refer to specifically.
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US lawyers launched ‘urgent review’ ahead of JFK files release
In a last-minute scramble, US Department of Justice lawyers were ordered to conduct an urgent review of JFK assassination records, just hours before Donald Trump fulfilled his campaign promise to release the long-classified documents.
A total of 1,123 files—spanning 80,000 pages—were made public on Tuesday evening, following an emergency directive from Christopher Robinson, an official in the National Security Division, The Times reports.
According to an email seen by Reuters, all lawyers in the Operations Section of the Office of Intelligence were instructed to review between 400 and 500 documents each by Tuesday noon, with only those on approved leave exempt.
The documents cover not only the 1963 assassination of John F. Kennedy but also records related to Robert F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., and possibly others.
Trump, speaking at Washington’s Kennedy Center the night before, insisted that the release would be unredacted, telling the audience: “Just don’t redact. You can’t redact.”
While it’s unclear if Justice Department officials were given advance notice of Trump’s decision, the move marks a historic moment in one of America’s longest-running conspiracy debates.
The full records are now available for public review via the National Archives website.
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What to know about JFK’s assassination
JFK’s assassination explained
JFK was assassinated in Dallas on November 22, 1963 as he travelled in a motorcade through Dealey Plaza.
Three shots were fired, two of which hit him in the neck and head.
Half an hour after the shots were fired, the 35th president of the United States was pronounced dead.
Oswald, a 24-year-old self-proclaimed Marxist, was soon arrested in a nearby cinema after police hunted the killer of one of their fellow officers.
He denied shooting anybody, claiming to reporters that he was a “patsy”.
Later he was accused of shooting the president dead with his $21 mail-order rifle from a window of the sixth floor of a nearby school textbook warehouse.
Two days after the assassination and his arrest, Oswald was being escorted from Dallas Police Headquarters to county prison.
As he was taken out in front of the world’s media, Jack Ruby stepped forward and shot him dead.
Ruby was later found guilty of murder.
The Warren Commission in 1964 reported that Oswald had been the lone gunman, and another congressional probe in 1979 found no evidence to support the theory that the CIA had been involved.
But some say this was a cover-up.
Conspiracy theories include a CIA plot, a mafia-hit job, and a covert operation by Vice President Lyndon Johnson.
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Where JFK was shot
President John F. Kennedy was shot at the Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963.
An âXâ marks one of the spots near where JFK was shotCredit: Reuters -
‘The CIA will be embarrassed,’ investigative journalist says
Investigative reporter Gerald Posner, who wrote the book Case Closed: Lee Harvey Oswald and the Assassination of JFK, believes the CIA will be feeling embarrassed once the remaining documents are released.
One of the conspiracy theories linked to the assassination is centered on the argument that the CIA had an alleged link to Kennedy’s death.
The theory is unsubstantiated, but has swirled nonetheless.
“I think these files won’t prove that [the CIA] was behind the effort to kill the president, but I think they will be embarrassing to the agency about how much they knew that Oswald was unhinged in the weeks before the assassination,” he told News Nation in January.
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Oswald’s Soviet links
Oswald’s links to the Soviet Union have been probed by the government.
A memo, released in 2017, revealed he met a KGB agent at the Soviet embassy in Mexico City around two months before Kennedy was killed.
The CIA file claimed Oswald spoke in broken Russian during the call.
Oswald spent two-and-a-half years living in Minsk, now Belarus, after defecting to the Soviet Union in 1959.
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The multiple shooter theory
Lee Harvey Oswald was named the prime suspect behind the assassination.
But, one conspiracy theory revolves around the idea that there were multiple shooters.
The Warren Commission, which investigated Kennedy’s death, said he was shot from behind.
But, his autopsy revealed Kennedy was hit by two bullets.
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What is stopping all the files from being released?
A 1992 law passed by Congress required all government files related to Kennedy’s assassination to be released unless they posed a risk.
The federal government could keep certain documents under wraps if they posed a risk to national security for instance.
Trump previously promised to release the last remaining trove of documents during his first term in office.
And he repeated the pledge to release all of the documents while on the campaign trail in June last year.
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Why is Trump releasing the files?
Trump signed an executive order on January 23 where he promised to release the files.
“It is in the national interest to finally release all records related to these assassinations without delay,” he said.
Trump has also promised to release public records relating to the assassinations of Robert F. Kennedy, who was killed in Los Angeles in 1968, and Martin Luther King Jr.
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What will be in the files?
Historians have warned that any revelations may not be groundbreaking.
Around 300,000 pages linked to Kennedy himself have already been disclosed, according to estimates.
Kennedy biographer Fredrik Logevall told NPR that anything new will not “dramatically overturn our understanding of what happened on that terrible day in Dallas.”
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How was John F. Kennedy killed?
Kennedy was shot while traveling in his motorcade in Dallas, Texas, on November 22 1963.
Lee Harvey Oswald was named as the prime suspect and he was killed two days later.
In the decades that followed, the US government has been accused of slowly releasing any federal files.
This has allowed conspiracy theories to flourish.
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Trump promises to release files
Donald Trump has promised to release 80,000 files related to the assassination of former president John F. Kennedy.
The news was announced on Monday and the president teased reporters that they have a “lot of reading.”
Trump vowed to release the files after signing an executive order that promised to declassify the documents.
But, it remains to be seen if there will be any earth-shattering revelations.
