FBI uncovers thousands of secret JFK assassination files

The FBI has discovered about 2,400 files linked to the assassination of John F Kennedy after President Trump’s demand for the release of all records related to the killing in 1963.

The previously unknown documents, which remain secret, were found among 14,000 pages of FBI records in a review triggered by Trump’s executive order in January seeking the release of all JFK assassination files, according to Axios.

The discovery, 61 years after Kennedy was shot dead in Dallas, follows decades of foot-dragging by federal agencies reluctant to turn over all documents connected with the assassination and the sprawling investigation that followed. It has spawned a slew of conspiracy theories about who pulled the trigger and who orchestrated the murder.

• Which files does Trump want to declassify? From JFK to the Epstein list

President Trump signed an executive order to declassify federal records related to the assassinations of JFK, Senator Robert F Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr, the civil rights leader, below

BEN CURTIS/AP

GETTY IMAGES

On his second full day back in the White House, Trump ordered the release of all records related to the assassination of JFK. The president has also demanded the disclosure of all files linked to the 1968 murders of JFK’s brother, Robert F Kennedy, and the civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr.

The order has sparked feverish excitement among conspiracy theorists and students of the JFK assassination. Many suspect the involvement of United States intelligence agencies in the three assassinations and dispute the official finding that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone-wolf gunman in Dallas.

Over the years former hitmen with the Chicago mafia have claimed that they were recruited by the CIA to kill JFK. Some of the files linked to those confessions remain under wraps in government archives.

• Why JFK files won’t stop the conspiracy theories

A poll taken in 2023 before the 60th anniversary of Kennedy’s assassination found that two thirds of Americans still do not believe that Oswald acted alone. Kennedy’s nephew, Robert F Kennedy Jr, who is nominated for a cabinet post in Trump’s administration, has accused the CIA of conspiring in his uncle’s murder.

Robert F Kennedy Jr has pointed fingers at the CIA over JFK’s murder

NATHAN HOWARD/REUTERS

The existence of new documents was revealed to the White House as the office of the director of national intelligence submitted its plan to release the JFK files. Trump’s executive order called for a proposal to publish the documents to be submitted to the president by March 9.

• State suppression is the real threat, not fake news

“This is huge. It shows the FBI is taking this seriously,” Jefferson Morley, an expert on the JFK assassination at the Mary Ferrell Foundation, an online archive of records linked to the killing, told Axios.

“The FBI is finally saying, ‘Let’s respond to the president’s order,’ instead of keeping the secrecy going,” Morley added.

All documents related to the assassination were supposed to be handed over to a review board and then to the National Archives under the 1992 JFK Records Act. The CIA, FBI and other agencies have continued to seek delays and redactions under successive presidencies, however, fuelling allegations of a conspiracy.

Lee Harvey Oswald was shot dead by Jack Ruby on November 24, 1963, the eve of Kennedy’s burial

AFP/GETTY IMAGES

Trump delayed the disclosure of some records during his first term as president on the advice of the CIA. His successor, Joe Biden, ordered a limited release of files on JFK, prompting legal action from the Mary Ferrell Foundation.

Despite Trump’s executive order, intelligence agencies are still said to be seeking redactions from their final cache of hidden documents, to the frustration of the White House. “This is total deep state bullshit,” one Trump administration official told Axios.