The Chaotic Release Of Long Sought After JFK Files
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The National Archives published two batches of records from the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection after President Donald Trump spontaneously announced that all remaining files would be released.
“This is a breakthrough. The absurd and suspicious redaction that have denied us the full story are, for the most part, removed,” declared renowned reporter Jefferson Morley, known for his work publishing the JFK Facts newsletter. He’s also the vice president of the Mary Ferrell Foundation, which maintains a searchable database for exploring released files.
Morley added, “We now know why JFK wanted to ‘splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds.’ Because as Arthur Schlesinger [Jr.] told him, the CIA was usurping presidential authority. The Agency censored Schlesinger’s case for six decades to obfuscate the reality of CIA power.”
In total, 2,182 files out of approximately 3,500 documents known to have been previously censored were posted. Because the files were handled prior to the widespread use of computer technology, many of them contain markings with restored text that allows the public to see what the CIA and various other agencies did not want citizens to read.
The released files, as noted by Morley, did not include a “500-plus IRS record” or the 2,400 FBI files that were reportedly discovered in February.
One problem with the release of files is that they were not converted into documents that could be searchable. It may be several days before it is entirely clear what was released and what redacted files remain concealed.
Trump issued an executive order on January 23 that called for the release of all JFK assassination records and the immediate review of records on the assassinations of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Martin Luther King Jr.
On February 11, a few weeks later, it was announced that the United States House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform would fight secrecy that had “sowed distrust” in U.S. institutions. The “Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets” was established with Florida Representative Anna Paulina Luna appointed as its chair.
The seriousness of this supposed declassification effort has been called into question, especially since the stunt that occurred with Jeffrey Epstein files on February 27. As CBS News reported, “A group of 15 right-wing influencers visited the White House” and later “emerged with binders labeled ‘The Epstein Files: Phase 1.” But the files in the binder had previously been released.
JFK files were expected in February, given the timeline set out by the Trump administration, but the deadline for releasing declassified files was moved to March.
On March 17, Trump announced during a visit at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts that he would release 80,000 files. It was unclear where he got the number, and he additionally claimed the administration would not be redacting anything in the files.
ABC News was the first media organization to report on the “scramble” to prepare the documents for publication. Although the FBI had completed an “initial declassification review,” attorneys in the National Security Division of the U.S. Justice Department (DOJ) were tasked with providing a “second set of eyes” for this “urgent NSD-wide project.” They were up all night reading hundreds of pages so that Trump would not be embarrassed if they missed his deadline.
The division was created when the 2005 USA PATRIOT Act was reauthorized. It is often involved in leak prosecutions or NSA surveillance requests, not the declassification of records.
Lauren Harper, the Daniel Ellsberg chair on government secrecy for the Freedom of the Press Foundation, told The Dissenter, “It's a good thing the Trump administration is starting to release these 60+ year old records, which were supposed to be released 8 years ago. But the review process still shows signs of outdated and inefficient approaches to declassification.”
“The documents in the 2025 release had already been reviewed for declassification by the FBI, but the March 18 release was slowed by the need for other agency's to re-review the historical records,” Harper added.
Harper suggested that the public ask “how many other records from the 1960s are still classified across the entire federal government” and why those records have not been “automatically declassified as required by the executive order governing classification.”
Remarkably, the day after thousands of uncensored JFK files were posted, the Trump Justice Department asked a U.S. court to unseal FBI surveillance records that could shed light on the MLK assassination. The FBI has opposed the disclosure of these documents for decades. (Note: The Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the civil rights organization founded by King, is against the release of the records—fearing they will tarnish his legacy.)
The chaos surrounding the release of files mirrored what unfolded during Trump's first term. The government had known for 25 years that a deadline for declassification under the JFK Assassination Records Collection Act would come in 2017.
Nearly 4,000 records were released on July 24, 2017, and for months, it was unclear what would happen next. Trump eventually published thousands of additional records at the end of October 2017, but bowed to the CIA and the FBI by maintaining redactions and allowing thousands of long sought after records to be kept secret.
President Joe Biden also sided with the CIA and FBI. In 2022, the Mary Ferrell Foundation sued Biden and the National Archives and Records Administration for failing to fulfill the requirements of the JFK Assassination Records Collection Act. The organization accused Biden of relying on flimsy claims of “anticipated harm” to keep thousands of records hidden.
Returning to the document from Schlesinger, who was a special assistant to JFK, we can see how these records were crudely handled. In 1993, a big black box with an X was drawn over an entire page to signify that this part about the CIA using U.S. State Department embassies for espionage should be redacted. For over three decades, the national security state kept this page from the public.
Steven Portnoy of ABC News Radio examined a 1966 internal CIA memo that recommended James McCord be given a “certificate of distinction” for his work on experiments that improved the agency’s spying capabilities. McCord later became President Richard Nixon’s head of security during his 1972 campaign and participated in the Watergate burglary.
One version of the memo was released under Biden in 2023, but parts of that version were censored. Now, in 2025, it was possible to glean that McCord had worked on “fluoroscopic scanning,” giving the agency the ability to detect “hidden technical listening devices.”
At this time, the file on George Joannides is still not public. Morley previously pursued a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit for the file so it is known that the CIA has these records. The file is important because it may show whether the CIA had targeted Oswald in January 1963 prior to the JFK assassination.
Joannides was a career CIA officer and the chief of CIA covert operations in Miami in November 1963.
According to Morley, “The documents in the Joannides file will shed light on how and why this one CIA field operative came to focus his propaganda and political action activities on the unknown Oswald in the summer of 1963 and what he reported to his superiors. The file will reveal more about why Joannides concealed his knowledge of Oswald from congressional investigators in 1978.”
This file is what Morley considers the test. If Trump is going to stand up to the CIA, or the “deep state,” he will make sure that this file is finally disclosed to the public so that the truth can be known once and for all.