More John F. Kennedy assassination files released, others locked away
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More JFK assassination records have been released. Why are the remaining ones still withheld?
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The NARA published 12,879 new files following an order from President Joe Biden
The US National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) released on Thursday thousands of additional documents related to former President John F. Kennedy's assassination, nearly six decades after he was shot dead as his motorcade passed through Dallas, Texas.
The NARA published 12,879 new files following an order from President Joe Biden.
"Processing previously withheld John F. Kennedy assassination-related records to comply with" Biden's request to disclose them by Dec. 15, the NARA said on its website.
"Pursuant to my direction, agencies have undertaken a comprehensive effort to review the full set of almost 16,000 records that had previously been released in redacted form and determined that more than 70 percent of those records may now be released in full," Biden wrote in the order.
"This significant disclosure reflects my Administration's commitment to transparency and will provide the American public with greater insight and understanding of the Government's investigation into this tragic event in American history," he added.
On November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, sparking a frenzy of public inquiry. Several investigations concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald fired the shots, and he was apprehended shortly after the murder. Two days later, he was shot while being escorted to a car that was supposed to take him to the county jail by Jack Ruby, the owner of a Dallas club. In the decades since the events, a plethora of conspiracy theories have emerged in an attempt to explain the assassination of John F. Kennedy and the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald.
The President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992 required the NARA to release the entire collection to the public in exactly 25 years, which was on October 26, 2017, unless the US president determined that doing so would jeopardize "national security" or current foreign relations.
Read: 1,491 documents on John F. Kennedy's assassination released
Since then, the national archivist has made available to the public more than 250,000 records relating to Kennedy's assassination, accounting for more than 90% of its collection.
Thousands of documents were released during the presidency of Former President Donald Trump, but he kept some files classified due to "national security" concerns.
In October 2021, Biden released almost 1,500 confidential records, but he postponed the release of the most sensitive files until December 15, 2022.
The remaining files will be released by June 30, 2023, according to Biden's order.
