Latest Batch of J.F.K. Assassination Records Released

WASHINGTON — The federal government on Thursday made public more than 13,000 additional documents from its files on President John F. Kennedy’s assassination as it seeks to finally release the last papers from its once-secret collection related to the 1963 murder.

The release was the fourth since summer and primarily includes documents that were released in the past, but with sensitive information redacted. The versions posted online on Thursday were for the most part supposed to reveal the previously withheld portions in keeping with a 1992 law mandating the maximum release possible by 2017.

The documents released so far this year have cast fresh light on one of the most sensational and still-debated events in modern American history. But as scholars and conspiracy theorists have combed through the files, they have not yet reported discovering conclusive evidence that definitively changes the previous understanding of the assassination or the weeks and months surrounding it.

President Trump, who has dabbled in conspiracy theories himself, has expressed great interest in ensuring that the government finally divulge virtually everything it has kept out of the public eye for more than a half-century.

Mr. Trump once asserted that the father of his Republican rival last year, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, was somehow involved in the assassination, and his sometime adviser, Roger J. Stone Jr., published a book in 2013 asserting that President Lyndon B. Johnson was complicit in the assassination, which resulted in his ascension to the Oval Office.

The 1992 law required the government to make public the last of the Kennedy assassination documents by Oct. 26, 2017, unless the sitting president opted to withhold any for national security reasons.

After protests by the F.B.I. and C.I.A. in the days leading up to the deadline last month, Mr. Trump reluctantly agreed to hold back tens of thousands of the documents for another review, but ordered the agencies to make public everything by April 26 except the names and addresses of people still living.

In keeping with the president’s order, the agencies are releasing some documents in periodic batches even before re-reviewing them, so some of what was posted on Thursday on the website of the National Archives and Records Administration may still have redactions that do not comply with Mr. Trump’s standard and will have to be rereleased by April.

After the 13,213 documents were disclosed on Thursday, the archives still has about 17,465 that remain to be released in the months to come.