2,400 New JFK Assassination Records Found, FBI Says

It’s amazing what new leadership atop the FBI helps unearth…

The FBI announced Tuesday it has uncovered 2,400 new records related to President John F. Kennedy’s 1963 assassination, part of efforts to comply with a recent executive order from former President Donald Trump mandating the release of thousands of files, according to AP. 

These documents will be transferred to the National Archives for declassification.

While over 5 million pages of JFK-related records have been made public, around 3,000 files remain partially or fully unreleased. The FBI did not disclose the contents of the newly found documents but credited its 2020 launch of the Central Records Complex and improved inventory technology for accelerating the discovery process.

The disclosure was praised as “refreshingly candid” by Jefferson Morley, vice president of the Mary Ferrell Foundation and editor of the JFK Facts blog. “It shows that the FBI is serious about being transparent,” Morley added, noting it sets a precedent for other agencies to release undisclosed documents.

This development follows former President Donald Trump’s recent executive order directing the national intelligence director and attorney general to devise a plan for declassifying related files. A spokesperson for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence confirmed a plan has been submitted but provided no details or timeline.

The AP report says that although all assassination records were supposed to be public by 2017, presidential exemptions delayed full disclosure. Trump initially vowed to release all records but withheld some over national security concerns. The Biden administration has continued incremental releases, though some files remain classified.

Decades of conspiracy theories have surrounded Kennedy’s 1963 assassination in Dallas, where Lee Harvey Oswald shot the president from the Texas School Book Depository. Two days later, nightclub owner Jack Ruby killed Oswald during a jail transfer. The Warren Commission concluded Oswald acted alone, but skepticism has persisted.

Gerald Posner, author of Case Closed, which supports the lone gunman theory, suggested the new files might be duplicates. “If they are really new assassination documents, then it raises a whole bunch of questions about how they were missed for all of these years,” he said, adding, “the ‘wow’ would be if they are related to Oswald or the investigation.”

Previous document releases have detailed intelligence operations of the era, including CIA memos about Oswald’s visits to Soviet and Cuban embassies in Mexico City weeks before the assassination. Morley highlighted that the CIA’s surveillance of Oswald has been the “emerging story over the last five to 10 years,” speculating that the new files could shed more light on this.