Trump Administration Releases Around 80,000 Pages Of Classified JFK Assassination Files Releases

Documents related to the 1963 assassination of the then United States President John F Kennedy were made public on Tuesday (18 March).

This release of documents that had been classified for decades comes after an order issued by US President Donald Trump soon after he assumed office.

The documents were posted on the website of the US National Archives and Records Administration.

However, most of the archive’s extensive collection—spanning over six million pages of records, photographs, films, audio recordings, and artifacts tied to the assassination—had already been released earlier.

"President Trump is ushering in a new era of maximum transparency. Today, per his direction, previously redacted JFK Assassination Files are being released to the public with no redactions. Promises made, promises kept," US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said in a post on X.

Speaking to reporters on Monday , Trump stated that his administration planned to release 80,000 files.

However, it remains uncertain how many of those are among the millions of pages of records that have already been made public.

“We have a tremendous amount of paper. You’ve got a lot of reading,” Trump said while visiting the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington.

Experts have estimated that around 3,000 records had yet to be fully disclosed before this release.

Meanwhile, the FBI recently revealed that it had discovered around 2,400 additional documents related to the assassination.

In January, Trump issued a directive instructing the national intelligence director and the attorney general to formulate a plan for the release of these records.

On 22 November 1963, Kennedy was assassinated while visiting Dallas.

As his motorcade was finishing its parade route downtown, shots rang out from the Texas School Book Depository building.

Authorities swiftly apprehended 24-year-old Lee Harvey Oswald, who had allegedly positioned himself from a sniper’s perch on the sixth floor.

Just two days later, during a jail transfer, nightclub owner Jack Ruby shot and killed Oswald.

One year after the assassination, the Warren Commission—established by President Lyndon B Johnson to investigate—released its findings, determining that Oswald acted alone and that no conspiracy was involved.

However, this conclusion failed to dispel the numerous alternative theories that have persisted over the decades.

During the early 1990s, the US government ordered that all records tied to the assassination be housed in a single collection in the National Archives and Records Administration.

The collection was required to be opened by 2017, barring any exemptions designated by the president.

When Trump assumed office in 2017, he initially pledged to declassify all remaining assassination-related records. However, he later withheld some, citing concerns over national security.

Although additional files were released under President Joe Biden’s administration, certain documents were not disclosed.

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