THE FBI has discovered thousands of new top-secret JFK assassination files after Trump’s order bust open all the remaining documents.
The 2,400 unseen records contain 14,000 pages of material not known to exist – which could shed new light on the mysterious murder.
This huge bundle was withheld from a board set up in the ’90s to review all documents related to the case, and was also kept from the National Archive.
Conspiracy theories about the assassination have swirled for over 60 years as the public speculated that unreleased top-secret files might show Lee Harvey Oswald did not act alone.
President Trump signed an executive order to declassify all remaining records about the 1963 shooting on his second day in office.
With the same ink, he also ordered all records related to the deaths of President Kennedy’s brother, Robert F Kennedy, and civil rights leader Martin Luther King.
A review board was set up in 1992, and government agencies were supposed to turn over all evidence they had related to JFK’s assassination.
The White House was on Friday informed that – in fact – not all of the documents had been submitted, and there remained a trove of unscrutinised intel, as reported by Axios.
Jefferson Morley, an expert on the assassination, told the news site: “This is huge. It shows the FBI is taking this seriously.”
He added: “The FBI is finally saying: ‘Let’s respond to the president’s order,’ instead of keeping the secrecy going.”
The existence of the documents came to light when the Office of the Director of National Intelligence submitted its plan for carrying out Trump’s order.
It isn’t yet known what they contain, but the fact they were for years held back – against orders – will raise questions about government transparency.
Gerald Leo Posner, an expert author on the assassination, said the newly-disclosed FBI files arouse suspicions that that other agencies are withholding documents.
He said: “It’s another reason why you will never get a consensus on this case because no one will ever agree that all of the information has been released.”
President John F Kennedy was shot in the head and neck by a 24-year-old Lee Harvey Oswald whilst travelling in an open-top car parade in Dallas, Texas.
The President John F Kenney Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992 said that all government files relating to the event must be made public by October 2017.
However, there was a loophole built in that allowed their release to be delayed for national security and privacy reasons.
Trump’s order on January 23 read: “More than 50 years after the assassinations of President John F Kennedy, Senator Robert F Kennedy, and the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the Federal Government has not released to the public all of its records related to those events.”
“Their families and the American people deserve transparency and truth.
It added: “It is in the national interest to finally release all records related to these assassinations without delay.”
John F Kennedy’s grandson, however, blasted Trump’s order to release the secret assassination files.
Jack Schlossberg to responded to the announcement by saying: “The truth is sadder than myth”.
Trump had promised to first term, but was persuaded the CIA and FBI that some documents should remain private to avoid the possibility of revealing national security secrets.
President Biden then ordered the limited release of some records, but government spooks continued to insist that full disclosure of the documents could compromise “sources and methods” of the intelligence spy.
After Biden, the number of outstanding files was thought to stand at 3,500.
JFK's assassination explained
JFK was assassinated in Dallas on November 22, 1963 as he travelled in a motorcade through Dealey Plaza.
Three shots were fired, two of which hit him in the neck and head.
Half an hour after the shots were fired, the 35th president of the United States was pronounced dead.
Oswald, a 24-year-old self-proclaimed Marxist, was soon arrested in a nearby cinema after police hunted the killer of one of their fellow officers.
He denied shooting anybody, claiming to reporters that he was a “patsy”.
Later he was accused of shooting the president dead with his $21 mail-order rifle from a window of the sixth floor of a nearby school textbook warehouse.
Two days after the assassination and his arrest, Oswald was being escorted from Dallas Police Headquarters to county prison.
As he was taken out in front of the world’s media, Jack Ruby stepped forward and shot him dead.
Ruby was later found guilty of murder.
The Warren Commission in 1964 reported that Oswald had been the lone gunman, and another congressional probe in 1979 found no evidence to support the theory that the CIA had been involved.
But some say this was a cover-up.
Conspiracy theories include a CIA plot, a mafia-hit job, and a covert operation by Vice President Lyndon Johnson.
