Trump to release classified JFK assassination files

Donald Trump is to release a trove of long-classified documents on the assassination of former president John F Kennedy.

Tweeting over the weekend, the current US President said “subject to receipt of further information” he would allow the “long blocked and classified JFK files to be opened”.

In 1992, partly in response to the Oliver Stone film JFK, Congress ruled that all documents relating to the assassination should be released within 25 years, unless the president decided they would harm national security.

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The deadline for the release of the final batch of files, believed to number around 3,100 documents, is Thursday 26 October. “It is unclear whether Trump intends to allow the release in full or with redactions,” says the BBC.

Even though their publication is required by law, “speculation has mounted among his critics that Trump might have readily agreed to release the files in order to distract from the ongoing investigation into his alleged ties with Russia”, says The Independent.

The Washington Post claims Kennedy assassination experts do not think the last batch of papers contains any bombshells. However, it may shed light on Lee Harvey Oswald’s activities in Mexico City months before the assassination and especially his links to the CIA, potentially discrediting one of the agencies investigating Trump over his links to the Kremlin.

Oswald was arrested in Dallas just hours after the President was shot on 22 November 1963 and was himself gunned down by night-club owner Jack Ruby while in police custody two days later.

Trump is no stranger to spreading JFK conspiracy theories, says Newsweek, “alleging that the father of his rival for the Republican presidential candidacy, Ted Cruz, was involved in the plot, prompting a furious denial from the Texas senator”.