JFK files released by Donald Trump after decades of being kept secret

US president Donald Trump has released 80,000 pages of documents relating to the 1963 assassination of John F Kennedy following decades of conspiracy theories about his death

Donald Trump has finally released tens of thousands of classified files about the assassination of former US president John F Kennedy.

In the days after returning to the White House, Trump signed an executive order requiring 80,000 documents relating to JFK and his death to be made available to the public. The National Archives said in a statement this evening: "In accordance with President Donald Trump’s directive of March 17, 2025, all records previously withheld for classification that are part of the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection are released. The National Archives has partnered with agencies across the federal government to comply with the President’s directive in support of Executive Order 14176.

"As of March 18, 2025, the records are available to access either online at this page or in person, via hard copy or on analog media formats, at the National Archives at College Park, Maryland." The archives added that more records would be released in the future as they "continue to be digitised". It is unclear whether any new or especially shocking information is contained within the trove of newly released documents.

But, speaking to reporters at the John F Kennedy Centre for the Performing Arts in Washington DC on Tuesday, a bullish Mr Trump said: "We have a tremendous amount of paper. You’ve got a lot of reading."

At present, the National Archive has produced 1,123 entries spread across 113 pages on its website. Each file is sorted by its Record Identification Form (RIF) number, which is included in the filename. People can use the details to search for specific documents related to the assassination.

The president confirmed on Monday that he would now be releasing the files, and said: "People have been waiting decades for this. It will be very interesting." John F Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, was assassinated on November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas, while riding in a motorcade through Dealey Plaza.

He was shot by Lee Harvey Oswald from a sixth-floor window of the Texas School Book Depository, with the assassin himself fatally gunned down two days later. However, conspiracy theories about the assassination have persisted for many years, with JFK's own nephew and current US Secretary of Health Robert F Kennedy Jr having accused the CIA of carrying out the killing.

The CIA has repeatedly denied the accusations. The vast majority of the intelligence records relating to John F Kennedy's have already been released, though Trump had promised during his election campaign last year to make public the last few batches of still-classified documents with no redactions. It followed a similar pledge during his first term, which he later claimed he could not fulfil because of concerns over "national security".

In the last few days, many had speculated over whether the tranche of intelligence documents would shine more light on what the CIA knew about Lee Harvey Oswald. The US Marine veteran, who was described by a psychiatrist as "emotionally disturbed" during his teenage years, had paid a visit to a Soviet embassy during a visit to Mexico City just two weeks before he shot JFK.

Trump's executive order in January directed the director of national intelligence and attorney general to develop a plan within 15 days to release the remaining John F Kennedy records, and to come up with a plan within 45 days for documents on the 1968 assassinations of Senator Robert F Kennedy and Martin Luther King. Trump handed the pen used to sign the order to an aide, and asked for it to be given to Robert F Kennedy Jr.

On Monday, Donald Trump said he would be releasing 80,000 of the remaining files, and added: "We are tomorrow announcing and giving all of the Kennedy files. You got a lot of reading. I don't believe we are are going to redact anything".

Only a few thousand of the millions of government records related to the assassination of President Kennedy are yet to be fully declassified. In the early 1990s, the federal government ordered that all assassination-related documents be housed in a single collection in the National Archives and Records Administration. The collection of over five million records was required to be opened by 2017, but Trump said the risk to national security outweighed "the public interest in immediate disclosure.” The CIA was also said to have redacted information in some documents that identifies the location of its stations and safehouses abroad, including several that remained in use.

It is not known yet when the files on Martin Luther King will be released. Last month, the family of the late civil rights leader spoke out in opposition to Trump's plans to declassify the documents, as they fear it could revive the efforts of former FBI director J Edgar Hoover to smear and discredit him. One friend of the King family told Axios: "We know J Edgar Hoover tried to destroy Dr King’s legacy, and the family doesn’t want that effort to prevail."