Approximately 5,000 documents remain sealed or redacted, more than 60 years after the president was assassinated.
The Director of National Intelligence and the U.S. Attorney General have until Feb. 7 to present a full disclosure plan for the records pertaining to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, according to an executive order signed by President Donald Trump on Jan. 23.
“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,” Trump wrote in the order.
Since Kennedy was shot in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963, some have speculated about what the government knows, and the slow release of documents has only heightened suspicions, according to those calling for declassification.
According to the National Archives, more than 5 million documents, photographs, and other artifacts related to the assassination are in the government’s possession.
Approximately 99 percent of the records are available for the public to review, although around 5,000 documents remain sealed or redacted.
Some have additionally questioned the official narratives regarding the assassinations of Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr.. The order also calls for King’s records to be released—with the plans due by early March.
“Their families and the American people deserve transparency and truth,” Trump’s order states. “It is in the national interest to finally release all records related to these assassinations without delay.”
While signing the executive order, Trump said, “People are waiting for this for years, for decades, and everything will be revealed.”
He instructed his staff to hand the pen he used to sign the order to Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.—the nephew of the deceased president and the son of the slain former senator.
RFK Jr. has long criticized the government for concealing documents and has suggested the Central Intelligence Agency may have played a role in his uncle’s death.
He quoted the 35th president in a Jan. 24. post on social media platform X.
He said JFK warned that ‘The very word ‘secrecy’ is repugnant in a free and open society, and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secrecy … We decided long ago that the dangers of excessive and unwarranted concealment of pertinent facts far outweighed the dangers which are cited to justify it.’”
He suggested the lack of transparency has eroded the public’s trust in government.
RFK Jr., who has been nominated by Trump as Health and Human Services Secretary, said the government owes Americans the truth and thanked the president for working to release the documents.
“A nation that does not trust its people is a nation that is afraid of its people,” he wrote. “A government that withholds information is inherently fearful of its citizens’ ability to make informed decisions and participate actively in democracy.”
A law passed by Congress, the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992, ordered all government records related to the incident to be released to the public in full by Oct. 26, 2017.
Exceptions were made for items deemed harmful to intelligence operations, foreign relations, military defense, or law enforcement and that such harm outweighed the public’s right to know.
When the deadline approached during Trump’s first term, he acknowledged in his order accepting redactions proposed by certain unnamed agencies and executive departments.
He subsequently directed the agencies to reconsider the redactions within three years and further disclose information.
The deadline was extended three times during President Joe Biden’s term in office.
Trump said on an episode of the “All-In” podcast in June 2024 that the CIA was “probably behind” the pressure to delay the release of all the documents during his first administration.
He said people have been waiting a long time for the information to be declassified, and they deserve transparency from their government.
“Whatever it is, it will be very interesting for people to see,” Trump said. “And we’re going to have to learn from it.”
President Kennedy was killed at approximately 12:30 p.m. while riding in a convertible limousine through downtown Dallas, Texas.
He suffered a head wound and was pronounced dead at 1 p.m.
Soon after, Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested by Dallas police officers and charged at 1:30 a.m. on Nov. 23 with the president’s murder.
The next day, Oswald was shot and killed on live television by Jack Ruby during a prisoner transfer.
One week after the assassination, President Lyndon B. Johnson established the Warren Commission to study the incident.
Chaired by Chief Justice Earl Warren, the group—which included CIA director Allen Dulles—concluded that Oswald was solely responsible for the crime.
The 888-page report produced by the commission has generated questions from researchers since its release in September 1964.
Other investigations followed, including one from the Rockefeller Commission in 1975.
Commissioners studied the CIA’s domestic activities and determined the agency was not involved in the assassination and that the president was not hit by a shot from in front of the vehicle—a claim some have made because Kennedy’s head is seen moving backward in the widely distributed Zapruder film.
Over the course of 1975 and 1976, the Senate’s Church Committee investigated intelligence agencies’ actions.
Initial findings led the committee to call for another look at the assassination.
Lawmakers in the House of Representatives established a Select Committee on Assassinations in 1976.
The group concluded that the president was likely murdered because of a conspiracy that could have included elements of organized crime.
However, the committee agreed with the Warren Commission’s findings that Oswald fired the fatal shot and the one that struck the president and then-Texas Gov. John Connally.
Questions have surrounded the bullet the commission alleges struck both individuals, with the so-called “single bullet theory” a main premise of the Oliver Stone film “JFK” released in 1991
The new order was one of the president’s promises to voters.
“When I return to the White House, I will declassify and unseal all JFK assassination-related documents,” Trump said repeatedly on the campaign trail last year. “It’s been 60 years, time for the American people to know the truth.”
In a 1998 report, the Assassination Records Review Board suggested that releasing documents could help restore trust in the government.
“The suspicions created by government secrecy eroded confidence in the truthfulness of federal agencies in general and damaged their credibility,” lawmakers wrote.