Newsman: President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday requiring the full release of government documents related to the assassinations of former President John F. Kennedy, his brother and presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy and civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr.
“Their families and the American people deserve transparency and truth,” the order states. “It is in the national interest to finally release all records related to these assassinations without delay.”
Trump signed the order Thursday in the Oval Office, calling it “a big one.”
“A lot of people are waiting for this… for years, for decades,” Trump said, adding: “And everything will be revealed.”
The order requires the director of national intelligence and attorney general to work with White House officials on a plan to release the John F. Kennedy records and present it to Trump within 15 days. A plan for releasing the other records must be presented to Trump within 45 days.
Trump’s order lays out the saga over releasing John F. Kennedy’s record. A law passed in 1992 required the records to be fully released by Oct. 26, 2017 unless the president at the time determines their release would cause “identifiable harm to the military defense, intelligence operations, law enforcement, or conduct of foreign relations… of such gravity that it outweighs the public interest in disclosure.”
“I previously accepted proposed redactions from executive departments and agencies (agencies) in 2017 and 2018, but ordered the continued re-evaluation of those remaining redactions,” Trump’s executive order states, noting former President Joe Biden acted in 2021, 2022 and 2023 to give agencies more time to review the records.
“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,” the executive order states.
Trump was president when the 2017 deadline arrived. He ordered the release of some files, but kept others secret because of concerns by the CIA and FBI that their release could hurt national security.
The documents released in 2017 included details on the FBI and CIA investigations into Lee Harvey Oswald, the Marine veteran identified as Kennedy’s assassin, and information on covert Cold War operations.
In holding back some records, Trump said at the time: “I have no choice – today – but to accept those redactions rather than allow potentially irreversible harm to our nation’s security.”
