The White House said it will release 2,800 classified files relating to former President John F. Kennedy’s assassination on Thursday but it will temporarily keep some “sensitive” records under wraps.
A senior administration official told reporters some sensitive documents are being held for 180 days due to concerns from some intelligence agencies. Those documents, an official said, are being reviewed by intelligence agencies to determine whether they actually affect national security.
“I have no choice,” President Trump said in a memo, according to White House officials.
The withheld documents will be released, redacted, on April 26, the senior administration official said.
JFK ASSASSINATION FILES SET FOR RELEASE, BUT WHAT THEY REVEAL REMAINS A MYSTERY
Under the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act, the government is required to release the final batch of files on the assassination, which happened in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963. These secret files have long fueled rumors and speculation that gunman Lee Harvey Oswald wasn’t the only person involved in Kennedy’s murder.
Almost immediately after the Warren Commission in 1964 ruled that Oswald had been the lone gunman, conspiracy theories started to circulate over whether he had been the only shooter and whether the CIA had been involved in the Kennedy assassination.
But before investigators were able to fully question Oswald, the former U.S. Marine was shot and killed on Nov. 24, 1963, by Texas nightclub owner Jack Ruby – adding more fuel to the speculative fire that the U.S. government was hiding what it knew about the assassination.
The subsequent report by the Warren Commission, which was established by President Lyndon B. Johnson, did little to quell either the rumors that Oswald was killed to cover up a government conspiracy or the doubts that a lonely, alienated gunman could have fired such accurate and rapid shots.
The 1992 act, which was signed by President George H.W. Bush and required the government to release the remaining documents within 25 years’ time, also stipulated that the president is the only person who can stop any of the documents from being released.
Fox News’ Serafin Gomez and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
