Donald Trump does not plan to block the scheduled release of thousands of never publicly seen government documents related to the assassination of President John F Kennedy.

In a tweet on Saturday morning, Trump said: “Subject to the receipt of further information, I will be allowing, as president, the long blocked and classified JFK FILES to be opened.”



The National Archives has until Thursday to disclose the remaining files related to Kennedy’s 1963 assassination. The documents include more than 3,000 that have never been seen by the public and more than 30,000 that have been released with redactions.

Trump could block the release on the grounds that making the material public would harm intelligence, law enforcement, military operations or foreign relations.

A statement from the White House on Saturday said: “The president believes that these documents should be made available in the interests of full transparency unless agencies provide a compelling and clear national security or law enforcement justification otherwise.”



Kennedy, who was born 100 years ago, was shot dead as he rode in a motorcade in Dallas on 22 November 1963. He was the fourth US president to be assassinated, after Abraham Lincoln in 1865, James Garfield in 1881 and William McKinley in 1901.

Alistair Cooke wrote his report of the day for the Guardian “in the numbed interval between the first shock and the harried attempt to reconstruct a sequence of fact from an hour of tumult”.

“This was the first assassination of a world figure that took place in the age of television,” Cooke wrote.

Kennedy’s death became a cultural touchstone, the subject of countless histories, fictional retellings by figures including Oliver Stone and Stephen King, and virulent conspiracy theories.

Trump promoted one of those theories when he linked Texas senator Ted Cruz’s father to Kennedy’s assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, during the Republican presidential primary in April 2016.

Rafael Cruz “was with Lee Harvey Oswald” prior to the shooting, Trump told Fox News, adding: “The whole thing is ridiculous. What is this? Right prior to [Kennedy] being shot, and nobody even brings it up. They don’t even talk about that. That was reported, and nobody talks about it.

“I mean, what was he doing – what was he doing with Lee Harvey Oswald shortly before the death? Before the shooting? It’s horrible.”

In response, Cruz said: “I guess I should go ahead and admit that yes, my dad killed JFK, he is secretly Elvis and Jimmy Hoffa is buried in his backyard.”

He added: “[Trump] is a pathological liar. He doesn’t know the difference between truth and lies. He lies with practically every word that comes out of his mouth.”

After securing the nomination, Trump spoke about the unsubstantiated connection again. “All I did is point out the fact that on the cover of the National Enquirer there was a picture of him and crazy Lee Harvey Oswald having breakfast,” he said.

The immediate aftermath of the shooting. Photograph: James W. Ike Altgens/AP

Oswald was himself shot dead while in police custody, by Dallas nightclub owner Jack Ruby.

Kennedy researchers have said they do not expect the newly released files to include shocking information about the assassination, but do expect the release to provide fuel for conspiracy theorists.

Philip Shenon, author of A Cruel and Shocking Act: The Secret History of the Kennedy Assassination, and Larry Sabato, author of The Kennedy Half-Century, wrote in Politico that the release of all the documents at once would be a “logistical nightmare”.

“At worst,” they wrote, “especially if the White House blocks the release of some of the files, this month’s document release will simply cement the idea among the nation’s army of conspiracy theorists that, 54 years after those gunshots rang out over Dealey Plaza, the truth about the assassination is still being hidden.”