'We Can't Redact' - 80,000 Pages Of JFK Assassination Documents To Drop Tuesday Afternoon, Says Trump

President Trump on Monday announced that his administration is about to release 80,000 pages relating to the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy, Jr. Trump told reporters the mass-release will happen on Tuesday afternoon. Fittingly, he broke the news on an afternoon visit to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

"While we're here, I thought it would be appropriate: Tomorrow we are...giving all of the Kennedy files," Trump told reporters. "I don’t believe we’re going to redact anything. I said 'Just don't redact. We can't redact'. It's going to be very interesting...you'll make your own determination." On Monday evening, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna said the released files will be accessible at the National Archives JFK Assassination Records website. 

Three days after his January inauguration,Trump signed an executive order instructing Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and Attorney General Pam Bondi to come up with a plan for "the full and complete release of all John F. Kennedy assassination records," and records relating to the killings of Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. The order made the JFK files the first priority. "More than 50 years after these assassinations, the victims’ families and the American people deserve the truth," said Trump in announcing the order. 

Last month, the FBI disclosed that, pursuant to the order, it found approximately 2,400 new records pertaining to the JFK assassination, saying they "were previously unrecognized as related to the JFK assassination case file." It gave no indication about the substance of that batch of records. In 2022, the National Archives claimed that more than 97% of its Kennedy assassination documents were available to the public. At the time, the agency said the entire collection comprised approximately 5 million pages. 

"People have been waiting decades for this," said Trump on Monday. "I said during the campaign that I'd do it, and I'm a man of my word." Over those decades, a growing consensus has formed around the belief that the official story is false. On the other hand, there are many competing theories about who was really responsible. Here are just a few hypotheses (if your top theory isn't listed, share it in the comments): 

• The CIA killed JFK because of its outrage over his failure to invade Cuba in the wake of the failed Bay of Pigs invasion, and his desire to "splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it into the winds."
• The Soviet Union killed JFK in retaliation for embarrassing the USSR in the Cuban Missile Crisis. 
• Cuba's Fidel Castro killed JFK because of US assassination attempts on him, and/or because of the Bay of Pigs invasion.
• The Mafia killed JFK because of Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy's crackdown. 
• Vice President Lyndon B Johnson conspired to kill JFK to take power. 
• Israel killed JFK because of his opposition to the country's nuclear weapons development, potential sympathy with the Palestinians' right to return to homes they were expelled from in 1948, and insistence that the American Zionist Council register as agents of Israel pursuant to the Foreign Agents Registration Act. 

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr -- son of RFK and nephew of JFK -- may have had a big influence on Trump's move to release the long-secret documents. He's Trump's Secretary of Health and Human Services, and he's long pointed to the CIA as being a top suspect in both assassinations. "The evidence is overwhelming that the CIA was involved in the murder and in the cover-up [of my uncle]," RFK, Jr said in a 2023 podcast interview. Regarding his father's death, he said evidence of the CIA's guilt is "circumstantial" yet "convincing." 

In 1992, Congress passed the John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act, which required the release of all records by 2017. Under that law, further delays are only allowed with a presidential certification that 

• "Continued postponement is necessary due to an identifiable harm to the military defense, intelligence operations, law enforcement, or conduct of foreign relations, and 
• Such identifiable harm is of such gravity that it outweighs the public interest in disclosure."

There are questions swirling around what will be released on Tuesday afternoon. It's unclear if this will truly represent "all" of the remaining pages, or if -- contrary to Trump's reassurance to reporters -- some released documents may contain redactions that leave long-suffering transparency advocates aggravated.