U.S. President Donald Trump has ordered officials to develop a plan to declassify documents related to three of the most significant assassinations in American history: those of John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King Jr. “A lot of people have been waiting for this for years, for decades, and it’s all going to come out,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Thursday.
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02-13, 2025The order directs senior government officials to submit a plan for declassifying the documents within 15 days. President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas in 1963. His brother, Robert F. Kennedy, was assassinated in California in 1968 while campaigning for president, just two months after Martin Luther King Jr., America’s most prominent civil rights leader, was murdered in Memphis, Tennessee.
Many documents related to these investigations have been released over the years, but thousands remain partially or completely redacted, particularly those related to the extensive investigation into the Kennedy assassination. President John F. Kennedy was shot by Lee Harvey Oswald, a Marine Corps veteran who had defected to the Soviet Union before returning to the U.S. Government commissions determined that Oswald acted alone.
However, the case has long been shrouded in unanswered questions and has fueled alternative theories about the involvement of government agents, the mafia, and other nefarious figures, as well as more outlandish conspiracy theories. Decades of polling show that most Americans do not believe that Oswald was the sole assassin. In 1992, Congress passed a law requiring the release of all documents related to the investigation within 25 years. Both Trump during his first term and President Joe Biden have released large tranches of documents related to the Kennedy assassination, but thousands—totaling millions of pages—remain partially or fully classified.
Trump had promised to declassify all documents during his first term, but he backed away from that commitment after officials at the Central Intelligence Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation persuaded him to keep some of the files secret. Today’s executive order states that continued secrecy is “not in the public interest.” “As a statement of intent, it’s great that the president put his promise down on paper, that’s important,” said Jefferson Morley, a former Washington Post reporter, Kennedy assassination expert, and editor of the online newsletter JFK Facts. “But the details and the implementation are what matter. This is the very beginning of the process. Exactly how this is going to be carried out is totally unclear.”
Recently released documents have revealed new details about the assassinations, including the CIA’s extensive surveillance of Oswald. In 2023, Paul Landis, an 88-year-old former Secret Service agent, stated that he removed a bullet from the car after Kennedy was shot. Experts say this detail complicates the official narrative that one bullet struck both the president and Texas Governor John Connally, who was riding in the motorcade and survived the shooting.
Morley stated that the new information further calls into question the theory that Oswald acted alone and predicted that a full release of all redacted documents could greatly increase public understanding. However, he said that there may not be “smoking gun” evidence and that the CIA and other security officials will push to maintain some level of secrecy. “The story isn’t over,” he said.
At a White House signing ceremony on Thursday, Trump asked that the pen he used to sign the order be given to Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the son of the elder Robert Kennedy, nephew of the elder John F. Kennedy, and a presidential nominee for health secretary. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has long expressed skepticism about the official accounts of the assassinations of his uncle and his father, Robert Kennedy. The elder Kennedy was shot in a Los Angeles ballroom by Sirhan Sirhan, a Palestinian who was angry about U.S. support for Israel. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has spoken to Sirhan in prison and has said that he does not believe Sirhan killed his father, although other members of the Kennedy family reject this claim. Martin Luther King Jr. was shot by white nationalist James Earl Ray. King’s family has asserted that Ray did not act alone and was part of a larger conspiracy.
