The FBI has announced the discovery of thousands of records related to the assassination of John F Kennedy following searches undertaken to comply with an executive order by United States President Donald Trump.
The FBI said on Tuesday that searches had turned up about 2,400 “newly inventoried and digitized records that were previously unrecognized as related to the JFK assassination case file”.
The FBI’s announcement comes after Trump last month ordered the declassification and release of all remaining files related to JFK’s assassination, along with outstanding records on the assassinations of Robert F Kennedy, JFK’s younger brother, and the civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr.
The circumstances of JFK’s assassination in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963, have fuelled conspiracy theories for decades, with surveys showing widespread doubt about official explanations of the killing.
In a 2023 Gallup poll, 65 percent of Americans said they did not believe the Warren Commission’s conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in killing the president.
Robert F Kennedy Jr, Trump’s nominee for health secretary and the son of Robert F Kennedy, claimed in a 2023 interview that there was “overwhelming” and “very convincing” evidence of CIA involvement in his uncle’s killing.
During his first administration, Trump promised to release all remaining records on the assassination but ultimately only sanctioned the release of about 2,800 documents after bowing to pressure from the CIA and FBI to withhold thousands of files pending review.
The administration of former US President Joe Biden released approximately 17,000 more documents, leaving fewer than 4,700 records withheld in part or in full.
According to the National Archives, authorities have released more than 99 percent of the approximately 320,000 documents that have been reviewed under the JFK Records Act, a 1992 law that mandates the disclosure of remaining files.
