JFK assassination: Thousands of undisclosed records uncovered by FBI

WASHINGTON - Thousands of records connected to the assassination of former President John F. Kennedy as a result of President Donald Trump’s executive order to release the files have been uncovered by the FBI.

What we know:

The agency released 2,400 records tied to the Nov. 22, 1963, assassination which were not provided to the board that reviewed and disclosed the files, according to a report from Fox News.

The files were disclosed after the Office of the Director of National Intelligence submitted its plan to release the remaining JFK files.

What they're saying:

"In 2020, the FBI opened the Central Records Complex and began a multi-year effort to first ship and then electronically inventory and store closed case files from FBI field offices across the country," the FBI told Fox News. "The resulting, more comprehensive records inventory, coupled with the technologic advances in automating the FBI's record keeping processes, allows us to more quickly search and locate records.

"The FBI conducted a new records search pursuant to President Trump's Executive Order issued on January 23, 2025, regarding the declassification of the assassination files of JFK, RFK, and MLK. The search resulted in approximately 2400 newly inventoried and digitized records that were previously unrecognized as related to the JFK assassination case file," the agency added. "The FBI has made the appropriate notifications of the newly discovered documents and is working to transfer them to the National Archives and Records Administration for inclusion in the ongoing declassification process."

Dory Wiley has researched the JFK assassination for decades and collected witness accounts.

He now speaks to colleges and book clubs about his research.

"We don't know what we don't know. Right. But at the same time, we're very anxious to look at those files in particular if they have not been destroyed, altered or redacted," Wiley said. "While we don't expect maybe a smoking gun, we get pieces of a smoking gun every time there's a file released."

Trump's executive order

Trump signed an executive order on Jan. 23 to release the remaining classified documents surrounding the assassination of Kennedy in downtown Dallas.

The order also orders the release of documents surrounding the assassinations of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Everything will be revealed," Trump told reporters as he signed the order in the Oval Office.

When will the JFK files be released?

What we know:

The order signed by Trump doesn't make those records available immediately, instead it orders the Director of National Intelligence to present a plan within 15 days for the "full and complete" release of records.

The order gives the director 45 days to review records related to Robert F. Kennedy and King and present a plan for their releases.

This isn't the first time Trump has ordered records be released.

What we don't know:

While the executive order sets a hard deadline for the creation of a plan to release the remaining documents, it does not provide guidance on when those documents will be released.

The contents of the remaining documents are also unknown, as well as the amount of redaction those documents will contain.

What they're saying:

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., son of the late senator and Trump’s Health and Human Services nominee, told the press that the order was a "great move" on the president’s part. He believes that the move will bring "more transparency" and it shows that Trump is "keeping his promise to have the government tell the truth to the American people about everything." Kennedy has called for answers about his father and uncle’s assassinations, according to Fox News.

Following the signing of the executive order, Trump handed the pen he used to an aide who was told to give the pen to Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

Local perspective:

People from around the world visit Dealey Plaza in Dallas to see the infamous X that marks the spot in the road where Kennedy was assassinated.

Jim Grubba visited on Tuesday with friends from another country. He was in elementary school when it happened.

"We all want to know every detail. And when you don't, you fill in the blanks. I was in law enforcement for 34 years so I dealt with just facts," he said.

For people like Grubba, he said he will continue to deal in facts until told otherwise.

John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992

During his first term, President Trump ordered the records be released under the John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992.

In 1992, Congress passed the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act. The act ordered the archives to disclose all information collected — some 5 million pages of material — on the assassination within 25 years — barring any exceptions designated by the president.

Trump promised to declassify and release all the documents collected with minimal redactions.

Instead, a few thousand documents were withheld during his first term. In 2018, the president said the remaining documents' potential to cause harm to national security, law enforcement or foreign affairs outweighed the public interest.

Another batch of documents was released in 2021 by President Joe Biden. Documents were also released in 2022 and 2023.

What has already been released?

To date, more than 5 million pages of documents related to the assassination of Kennedy have been released by the national archives.

Some of the documents include memos from FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover written hours after Lee Harvey Oswald was killed in Dallas asking the government to release something to convince the public that Oswald killed John F. Kennedy.

It was released two days after the president was assassinated and hours after Oswald was killed by nightclub owner Jack Ruby in the basement of the Dallas police station.

Other documents reveal theories by other government officials surrounding the assassination.

A 1975 deposition by Richard Helms states that President Lyndon B. Johnson believed Kennedy was behind the assassination of the South Vietnamese president a few weeks prior to his assassination and that the shooting was retaliation.

Other documents are reports of strange calls to foreign media outlets, plans to assassinate Cuban leader Fidel Castro and information from the former Soviet Union's intelligence agency, the KGB, that linked Johnson to the assassination.

Others are reports of Oswald's trip to Mexico City to visit the Cuban and Soviet Union embassies there and agreements with the U.S. and Mexican governments for the United States to maintain close surveillance on the embassies.

Dallas, Texas - Nov. 22, 1963

Kennedy was fatally shot in downtown Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963, as his motorcade passed in front of the Texas School Book Depository building, where 24-year-old assassin Lee Harvey Oswald had positioned himself from a sniper’s perch on the sixth floor. Two days after Kennedy was killed, nightclub owner Jack Ruby fatally shot Oswald during a jail transfer.

The Warren Commission concluded in 1964 that Oswald acted alone, firing three shots from a window in the depository. Many Americans have questioned this conclusion. In 1978, the House Select Committee on Assassinations ended its own inquiry by finding that Kennedy "was probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy."