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Trump releases classified files on JFK assassination. Here's what they say.

Trump releases classified files on JFK assassination. Here's what they say.

Yahoo19-03-2025

WASHINGTON ― President Donald Trump's administration on Tuesday released what it said were all of the government's classified files on the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy, making tens of thousands of pages of unredacted records available to the public for the first time.
The release of the files comes after Trump signed a day one executive order in January aimed at fully releasing government documents related to the assassinations of Kennedy, his brother and presidential candidate Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, D-N.Y., and civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr.
The contents of the documents, and whether any previously unreleased information is in them, wasn't immediately clear. Historians quickly said they would need time to assess the flood of files to understand if they were significantly different from previous releases.
The documents were not expected to change the long-held findings that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in assassinating Kennedy on Nov. 22, 1963 while the then-president rode in a motorcade in Dallas, Texas.
Looking to read the JFK files yourself? You can find them on the National Archives' website here.
Most of the files are scans of documents, and some are blurred or have become faint or difficult to read in the decades since Kennedy's assassination. There are also photographs and sounds recordings, mostly from the 1960s.
– Marina Pitofsky
Some of the documents played down Oswald's Soviet connection in the mid-twentieth century. One dated November 1991 cited a report from an American professor named E.B. Smith who reported he had talked in Moscow about Oswald with KGB official 'Slava' Nikonov, who said he had reviewed five thick files about the assassin to determine if he had been a KGB agent.
'Nikonov is now confident that Oswald was at no time an agent controlled by the KGB,' Smith reported.
– Reuters
Some of the documents also include references to various conspiracy theories suggesting that Oswald left the Soviet Union in 1962 intent on assassinating the popular young president.
Department of Defense documents from 1963 covered the Cold War of the early 1960s and the U.S. involvement in Latin America, trying to thwart Cuban leader Fidel Castro's support of communist forces in other countries.
The documents suggest that Castro would not go so far as to provoke a war with the United States or escalate to the point "that would seriously and immediately endanger the Castro regime."
"It appears more likely that Castro might intensify his support of subversive forces in Latin America," the document reads.
– Reuters
James Johnston, author of "Murder, Inc.: The CIA under John F. Kennedy" told USA TODAY that he wasn't expecting any bombshells, given that virtually all of the relevant agencies – including the CIA – had promised to turn over everything they had years ago to the National Archives in 1988.
'If it was going to embarrass the agency or tell a different story, they wouldn't have turned them over to the National Archives in the first place,' said Johnston, who was a staff member of the congressional Church Committee that investigated the CIA in 1975. 'And if they were withholding them before, I'm guessing they would continue to withhold them.'
Johnston cited one particular document that he knows exists but that he says hasn't been turned over to the National Archives – the first one-on-one conversation between President Lyndon Johnson and CIA Director John McCone right after Johnson took office after Kennedy's assassination.
McCone was long suspected of withholding information from the Warren Commission, the panel Johnson created to investigate Kennedy's murder, according to Philip Shenon, author of 'A Cruel and Shocking Act: The Secret History of the Kennedy Assassination.'
McCone was kept on as CIA director by Johnson and pledged full cooperation with the commission, which was led by Chief Justice Earl Warren, Shenon wrote in a 2015 Politico article about his book's findings. He testified that the CIA had no evidence to suggest that Oswald was part of any conspiracy, foreign or domestic, but rather a former Marine and self-proclaimed Marxist who acted as a delusional lone wolf.
That depiction of Oswald was ultimately adopted by the Warren Commission in its final report. But years later, Shenon said, the CIA itself acknowledged that McCone had withheld information from commission investigators.
Several of the documents released Tuesday are tied to the Warren Commission: But what is it?
After Kennedy was shot in 1963, his successor Lyndon B. Johnson created a commission to investigate the assassination. The Warren Commission determined that Oswald, who was arrested and later shot by a nightclub owner on live television, acted alone.
Still, the assassination has fueled intense debate and a myriad of theories challenging the conclusion of the Warren Commission. Polls have shown that many Americans believe Kennedy's death was part of a wider conspiracy.
– Christopher Cann
Trump himself did not immediately post about the document release. But Tulsi Gabbard, Trump's director of National Intelligence, hailed their release, saying it was part of Trump's promise for 'maximum transparency and a commitment to rebuild the trust of the American people in the Intelligence Community (IC) and federal agencies.'
Critics have long accused the intelligence community, and CIA in particular, of withholding potentially revelatory information about the case. Still, intelligence officials over the years have insisted that they have released everything important and that what's left was withheld only to protect highly classified sources and methods of gathering intelligence and protecting sources.
In a statement, Gabbard said that she immediately sent out a directive across the intelligence community after Trump's Monday announcement ordering everyone to provide all unredacted records within the collection of documents about Kennedy's assassination the national archives for immediate release.
JFK file experts said those documents almost certainly have all been made public and viewed already, but with mostly minor redactions.
The documents were released just before 7 p.m.
The National Archives and Records Administration, the keeper of the documents, posted them with this statement:
'In accordance with President Donald Trump's directive of March 17, 2025, all records previously withheld for classification that are part of the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection are released.'
The National Archives said it partnered with agencies across the federal government to comply with the President's directive in support of Executive Order 14176. It said the records are available to access either online or in person, via hard copy or on analog media formats, at the National Archives at College Park, Maryland.
'As the records continue to be digitized, they will be posted to this page,' the National Archives said, suggesting that not all of the documents were being released on Tuesday in digital form.
The National Archives also said some information might still be withheld under court seal or for grand jury secrecy, and because some tax return information is subject to Internal Revenue Code prohibitions.
More: Trump's release of assassination docs opens window into nation's most debated mysteries
The digital document dump came one day after Trump announced the files would be released during a visit to the John F. Kennedy Center of the Performing Arts, which he's taken over as board chairman.
"People have been waiting for decades for this," Trump told reporters.
"We have a tremendous amount of paper. You've got a lot of reading,' Trump added. 'I don't believe we're going to redact anything.'
The CIA and Federal Bureau of Investigation, which were involved in JFK assassination investigations and in the document release, had no immediate comment.
Trump's order reportedly set off a scramble within the Justice Department's National Security Division to meet Trump's deadline, according to ABC News and Reuters.
In an email just before 5 p.m. ET Monday, a senior official within DOJ's Office of Intelligence said that even though the FBI had already conducted "an initial declassification review" of the documents, "all" of the attorneys in the operations section now had to provide "a second set of eyes" to help with this "urgent NSD-wide project.,' ABC News reported Tuesday.
More: Task force on government secrets to interview 'witnesses' of JFK assassination
The process of releasing the files was set in motion on Trump's first day in office on Jan. 20, when he signed an executive order aimed at fully releasing all government documents related to the assassinations of Kennedy, his brother and presidential candidate Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, D-N.Y., and civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr.
Last month, the FBI said it found some 2,400 new records linked to Kennedy's assassination as well.
The agency said it was in the process of passing the documents to the National Archives and Records Administration. It's unclear what revelations, if any, are contained in the newly discovered files.
Kennedy's assassination has long been the subject of conspiracies after Oswald, the Marine veteran identified as Kennedy's assassin, was shot and killed days later.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump's Health and Human Services secretary, has called for release of the files to see if any U.S. officials were involved in the assassination or potential coverup. Several U.S. investigations had found no such evidence.
While millions of government records related to the Kennedy assassination have been previously released, some information remains classified and redacted. Trump said he instructed his director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, to oversee the release of the remaining files.
More: FBI finds 2,400 new documents linked to JFK assassination
A federal law passed in 1992 required the Kennedy assassination records to be fully released by Oct. 26, 2017 unless the president at the time determined their release would cause "identifiable harm" to the military defense, intelligence operations, law enforcement, or conduct of foreign relations of such gravity that it "outweighs the public interest in disclosure."
Trump was president when the 2017 deadline arrived. He ordered the release of nearly 2,900 records, but kept others secret because of concerns by the CIA and FBI that their release could hurt national security.
Former President Joe Biden acted in 2021, 2022 and 2023 to give agencies more time to review the records.
The documents released in 2017 included details on the FBI and CIA investigations into Oswald and information on covert Cold War operations.
Josh Meyer is USA TODAY's Domestic Security Correspondent. You can reach him by email at jmeyer@usatoday.com. Follow him on X at @JoshMeyerDC and Bluesky at @joshmeyerdc.bsky.social.
Contributing: Ed Brackett, Joey Garrison
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: JFK files have been released: Here's what they say about assassination

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ICE raids accelerate, protests spread
ICE raids accelerate, protests spread

The Hill

time15 minutes ago

  • The Hill

ICE raids accelerate, protests spread

Evening Report is The Hill's P.M. newsletter. Sign up here or subscribe in the box below: Thank you for signing up! Subscribe to more newsletters here THE WHITE HOUSE vowed Wednesday that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids would continue 'unabated,' as protests spread from Los Angeles into other major American cities. Demonstrations have sprung up in Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, Chicago, Austin, Denver, San Francisco and other major cities. California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) sought to rally the nation to his side, as U.S. Marines prepared to join National Guard troops dispatched to keep the peace in Los Angeles. 'This isn't just about protests here in Los Angeles,' Newsom said in a direct-to-camera address. 'This is about all of us. This is about you. California may be first, but it clearly will not end here. Other states are next. Democracy is next. Democracy is under assault before our eyes.' The White House warned protesters there would be consequences if demonstrations in other cities get out of hand. 'Let this be an unequivocal message to left-wing radicals in other parts of the country who might be thinking about copy-catting the violence in an effort to stop this administration's mass deportation efforts,' said press secretary Karoline Leavitt. 'You will not succeed. Any lawlessness will only strengthen this president's resolve to defend the majority of Americans who want to live their lives peacefully, free from the fear of violent criminal illegal aliens.' The New York Police Department said at least 80 people were arrested at anti-ICE protests in lower Manhattan on Tuesday night. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) deployed the National Guard to deal with protests in his state. 'Peaceful protest is legal,' Abbott posted on X. 'Harming a person or property is illegal & will lead to arrest. @TexasGuard will use every tool & strategy to help law enforcement maintain order.' 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Images of unrest, political spin distort the reality on the ground in L.A.
Images of unrest, political spin distort the reality on the ground in L.A.

Los Angeles Times

time18 minutes ago

  • Los Angeles Times

Images of unrest, political spin distort the reality on the ground in L.A.

Driverless Waymo vehicles, coated with graffiti and engulfed in flames. Masked protesters, dancing and cavorting around burning American flags. Anonymous figures brazenly blocking streets and shutting down major freeways, raining bottles and rocks on the police, while their compatriots waved Mexican flags. The images flowing out of Los Angeles over nearly a week of protests against federal immigration raids have cast America's second most populous city as a terrifying hellscape, where lawbreakers rule the streets and regular citizens should fear to leave their homes. In the relentless fever loop of online and broadcast video, it does not matter that the vast majority of Los Angeles neighborhoods remain safe and secure. Digital images create their own reality and it's one that President Trump and his supporters have used to condemn L.A. as a place that is 'out of control' and on the brink of total collapse. The images and their true meaning and context have become the subject of a furious debate in the media and among political partisans, centered on the true roots and victims of the protests, which erupted on Friday as the Trump administration moved aggressively to expand its arrests of undocumented immigrants. As the president and his supporters in conservative media tell it, he is the defender of law and order and American values. They cast their opponents as dangerous foreign-born criminals and their feckless enablers in the Democratic Party and mainstream media. The state's political leaders and journalists offer a compelling rebuttal: that Trump touched off several days of protest and disruption with raids that went far beyond targeting criminals, as he previously promised, then escalated the conflict by taking the highly unusual step of sending the National Guard and Marines to Southern California. Reaction to the raids by federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and the subsequent turmoil will divide Americans on what have become partisan lines that have become so predictable they are 'calcified,' said Lynn Vavreck, a political science professor at UCLA. 'The parties want to build very different worlds, voters know it, and they know which world they want to live in,' said Vavreck, who has focused on the country's extreme political polarization. 'And because the parties are so evenly divided, and this issue is so personal to so many, the stakes are very high for people.' As a curfew was imposed Tuesday, the sharpest street confrontations appeared to be fading and a national poll suggested Americans have mixed feelings about the events that have dominated the news. The YouGov survey of 4,231 people found that 50% disapprove of the Trump administration's handling of deportations, compared with 39% who approve. Pluralities of those sampled also disagreed with Trump's deployment of the National Guard and U.S. Marines to Southern California. But 45% of those surveyed by YouGov said they disapprove of the protests that began after recent Immigration and Customs Enforcement actions. Another 36% approved of the protests, with the rest unsure how they feel. Faced with a middling public response to the ICE raids and subsequent protests, Trump continued to use extreme language to exaggerate the magnitude of the public safety threat and to take credit for the reduction in hostilities as the week progressed. In a post on his TruthSocial site, he suggested that, without his military intervention, 'Los Angeles would be burning just like it was burning a number of months ago, with all the houses that were lost. Los Angeles right now would be on fire.' In reality, agitators set multiple spot fires in a few neighborhoods, including downtown Los Angeles and Paramount, but the blazes in recent days were tiny and quickly controlled, in contrast to the massive wildfires that devastated broad swaths of Southern California in January. Trump's hyperbole continued in a fundraising appeal to his supporters Tuesday. In it, he again praised his decision to deploy the National Guard (without the approval of California Gov. Gavin Newsom), concluding: 'If we had not done so, Los Angeles would have been completely obliterated.' The Republican had assistance in fueling the sense of unease. His colleagues in Congress introduced a resolution to formally condemn the riots. 'Congress steps in amid 'out-of-control' Los Angeles riots as Democrats resist federal help,' Fox News reported on the resolution, being led by Rep. Young Kim of Orange County. A journalist based in New Delhi pronounced, based on unspecified evidence, that Los Angeles 'is descending into a full-blown warzone.' Veterans Affairs Secretary Douglas Collins suggested that the harm from the protesters was spreading; announcing in a social media post that a care center for vets in downtown L.A. had been temporarily closed. 'To the violent mobs in Los Angeles rioting in support of illegal immigrants and against the rule of law,' his post on X said, 'your actions are interfering with Veterans' health care.' A chyron running with a Fox News commentary suggested 'Democrats have lost their mind,' as proved by their attempts to downplay the anti-ICE riots. Many Angelenos mocked the claims of a widespread public safety crisis. One person on X posted a picture of a dog out for a walk along a neatly kept sidewalk in a serene neighborhood, with the caption: 'Los Angeles just an absolute warzone, as you can see.' In stark contrast to the photos of Waymo vehicles burning and police cars being pelted with rocks, a video on social media showed a group of protestors line dancing. 'Oh my God! They must be stopped before their peaceful and joy filled dance party spreads to a city near you!' the caption read. 'Please send in the Marines before they start doing the Cha Cha and the Macarena!' And many people noted on social media that Sunday's Pride parade in Hollywood for the LGBTQ+ community went off without incident, as reinforced by multiple videos of dancers and marchers celebrating along a sun-splashed parade route. But other activists and Democrats signaled that they understand how Trump's position can be strengthened if it appears they are condoning the more extreme episodes that emerged along with the protests — police being pelted with bottles, businesses being looted and buildings being defaced with graffiti. On Tuesday, an X post by Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass reiterated her earlier admonitions: 'Let me be clear: ANYONE who vandalized Downtown or looted stores does not care about our immigrant communities,' the mayor wrote. 'You will be held accountable.' The activist group Occupy Democrats posted a message online urging protesters to show their disdain for the violence and property damage. 'The moment violence of property damage begins, EVERY OTHER PROTESTER must immediately sit on the floor or the ground in silence, with signs down,' the advisory suggested. 'The media needs to film this. This will reveal paid fake thugs posing as protesters becoming violent. ….The rest of us will demonstrate our non-violent innocence and retain our Constitutional right to peaceful protest.' Craig Silverman, a journalist and cofounder of Indicator, a site that investigates deception on digital platforms, said that reporting on the context and true scope of the protests would have a hard time competing with the visceral images broadcast into Americans' homes. 'It's inevitable that the most extreme and compelling imagery will win the battle for attention on social media and on TV,' Silverman said via email. 'It's particularly challenging to deliver context and facts when social platforms incentivize the most shocking videos and claims, federal and state authorities offer contradictory messages about what's happening.' Dan Schnur, who teaches political science at USC and UC Berkeley, agreed. 'The overwhelming majority of the protesters are peaceful,' Schnur said, 'but they don't do stories on all the planes that land safely at LAX, either.' Though it might be too early to assess the ultimate impact of the L.A. unrest, Schnur suggested that all of the most prominent politicians in the drama might have accomplished their messaging goals: Trump motivated his base and diverted attention from his nasty feud with his former top advisor, Elon Musk, and the lack of progress on peace talks with Russia and Ukraine. Newsom 'effectively unified the state and elevated his national profile' by taking on Trump. And Bass, under tough scrutiny for her handling of the city's wildfire disaster, has also gotten a chance to use Trump as a foil. What was not disputed was that Trump's rapid deployment of the National Guard, without the approval of Newsom, had little precedent. And sending the Marines to L.A. was an even more extreme approach, with experts saying challenges to the deployment would test the limits of Trump's power. The federal Insurrection Act allows the deployment of the military for law enforcement purposes, but only under certain conditions, such as a national emergency. California leaders say Trump acted before a true emergency developed, thereby preempting standard protocols, including the institution of curfews and the mobilization of other local police departments in a true emergency. Even real estate developer Rick Caruso, Bass' opponent in the last election, suggested Trump acted too hastily. 'There is no emergency, widespread threat, or out of control violence in Los Angeles,' Caruso wrote on X Sunday. 'And absolutely no danger that justifies deployment of the National Guard, military, or other federal force to the streets of this or any other Southern California City.' 'We must call for calm in the streets,' Caruso added, 'and deployment of the National Guard may prompt just the opposite.'

Bessent says US may 'roll the date forward' for some after 90-day tariff pause ends
Bessent says US may 'roll the date forward' for some after 90-day tariff pause ends

Yahoo

time22 minutes ago

  • Yahoo

Bessent says US may 'roll the date forward' for some after 90-day tariff pause ends

(Reuters) -U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Wednesday said the Trump administration is prepared to "roll the date forward" with trading partners negotiating in good faith if the deadline marking the end of the 90-day pause on President Donald Trump's reciprocal tariffs is reached with no deal. "It is highly likely that those countries - or trading blocs as is the case with the EU - who are negotiating in good faith, we will roll the date forward to continue the good-faith negotiations," Bessent told the House Ways and Means Committee. "If someone is not negotiating, then we will not." Bessent's remarks, in response to a question from a Democratic lawmaker, marked the first time a Trump administration official has indicated some flexibility around the expiration date for the pause. That date - July 8 - is now just four weeks away, and so far the White House has struck only one preliminary deal with a major foreign trading partner affected by the pause, Britain. A deal struck on Tuesday in London with China to de-escalate that bilateral trade war is proceeding on a separate track and timeline. The White House did not immediately respond to a question about whether Trump shared Bessent's view. Trump announced the pause on April 9, a week after unveiling "Liberation Day" tariffs against nearly all U.S. trading partners that proved to be so unexpectedly large and sweeping that it sent global financial markets into near panic. The S&P 500 Index plunged more than 12% in four days for its heftiest run of losses since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020. Investors were so rattled they bailed out of safe-haven U.S. Treasury securities, sending bond yields rocketing higher. The dollar sank. Markets started their recovery on April 9 when Trump unexpectedly announced the pause. A further leg up in the recovery followed in early May when the Trump team reached a preliminary deal to dial back the triple-digit tariff rates it had imposed on goods from China. The events have given rise to what some on Wall Street have parodied as the "TACO" trade - an acronym for Trump Always Chickens Out. "The only time the market has reacted positively is when the administration is in retreat from key policy areas," Democratic Representative Don Beyer of Virginia told Bessent before pressing him on what should be expected at the end of the next deadline next month. "As I have said repeatedly there are 18 important trading partners. We are working toward deals with those," Bessent said before going on to signal a willingness to offer extensions to those negotiating in good faith. (Reporting By Dan Burns; Editing by Chris Reese and Daniel Wallis)

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