The Trump administration has declassified documents surrounding the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States, who was assassinated in Texas in 1963. President Donald Trump made the decision, which unlocks files previously censored, a step towards full government transparency.
US Spy Chief Tulsi Gabbard made the release public on social media site X, saying, "President Trump is leading an era of unprecedented transparency. Today, at his behest, long-withheld JFK Assassination Files are going out to the public unredacted. Commitments made, commitments fulfilled."
Trump alluded to the upcoming release while speaking at the Kennedy Center on Monday. He said, "So people have been waiting decades for this. I’ve instructed my people that are responsible, lots of different people, put together by Tulsi Gabbard, and that’s going to be released tomorrow."
As a consequence of this move, over 1,100 documents—approximately 31,000 pages—have been released. These consist of CIA memos, FBI reports, and diplomatic cables, shedding new light on the long-standing questions surrounding the assassination.
This release is part of an executive order Trump signed after taking office, instructing the FBI to find more documents on the 1963 Dallas shooting.
Historians, researchers, and conspiracy theorists have pursued a complete explanation of JFK's assassination for decades. While numerous experts project that the recently released files will not dramatically change the verified historical record, the public's continued interest and widespread suspicion that there remains a complete truth to be told will fuel additional review and discussion.
Among the most important documents are detailed chronologies of assassin Lee Harvey Oswald's movements prior to the assassination. CIA memoranda disclose his trips to the Soviet and Cuban embassies in Mexico City several weeks prior to Kennedy's murder, hinting that he might have been trying to procure visas to travel to Cuba or return to the Soviet Union.
The size of the release is significant, although Trump had originally stated that up to 80,000 pages would be released. Although the number of pages released is less than this, the documents still provide useful new insights into one of the most studied events in American history.
In a similar action, Trump had earlier directed the US Department of Justice to release files on Jeffrey Epstein, the financier and convicted sex offender who passed away in a New York prison in 2019. As much as there was a lot of attention on social media, especially among right-wing groups, the Epstein files provided little in the way of earth-shattering revelations.
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