6 hours ago
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US Federal Bureau of Investigation has discovered around 2,400 new records related to President
John F. Kennedy
’s assassination following President Trump’s executive order to release the secret files.
According to a report on Axios, the document contains 14,000 pages worth of material that disclosure board was supposed to review but never saw. However, the newly discovered documents remains secret at least for now.
“This is huge. It shows the
FBI
is taking this seriously,” said Jefferson Morley, the vice president of the
Mary Ferrell Foundation
, which has the largest online record of JFK assassination records.
“The FBI is finally saying, ‘Let’s respond to the president’s order,’ instead of keeping the secrecy going,” he added.
Earlier in January, Trump had ordered the declassification of all remaining classified records related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, fulfilling a long-standing promise.
The move was formalised through an executive order, which also called for the release of files concerning the assassinations of Senator Robert F. Kennedy and the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
“The families and the American people deserve transparency and truth,” the order said, adding that it is in the national interest to release these records without further delay.
While the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992 mandated full public disclosure of the files by October 2017, exemptions have allowed for the continued withholding of certain documents.
Trump’s order claimed that continued redactions are “not consistent with the public interest.”
"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," it read.
During his re-election campaign, Trump had pledged to release the remaining Kennedy assassination files, a promise he also made during his first term but later walked back, citing advice from intelligence officials.
Former CIA Director Mike Pompeo was among those who urged Trump to keep certain files classified, citing potential national security concerns.
Speculation around Kennedy’s assassination has persisted for decades. Kennedy was fatally shot in Dallas on November 22, 1963, and while Lee Harvey Oswald was identified as the lone gunman, conspiracy theories have long overshadowed the official narrative.
