"Declassification of Records Concerning the Assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, and the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr." (01, 23, 25)

What is this?

Executive Order 14176, titled "Declassification of Records Concerning the Assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, and the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.", is a presidential order signed by President Trump on January 23, 2025, that aims to release thousands of classified government documents about these historic assassinations. According to CBS News, the order requires intelligence officials to spend 15 days creating a plan to release JFK files, then 45 days to develop plans for releasing all RFK and MLK files. Trump stated that "Their families and the American people deserve transparency and truth" when signing the order. According to the National Archives (https://www.archives.gov/research/jfk), the majority of JFK assassination records had already been made public as of 2023, this order could finally reveal the remaining secret files and potentially answer lingering questions that have captivated the public for over 60 years.

New findings

So far, according to CBS News's initial review, the documents totaling some 80,000 pages did not appear to contain significant new revelations about the assassination. However, analysts reviewing the files say the documents have provided "enhanced clarity" on CIA clandestine operations in the early 1960s, particularly in Cuba and Mexico, and confirmed that assassin Lee Harvey Oswald visited both the Soviet and Cuban embassies in Mexico City before killing JFK. As CBS News noted, while the 80,000 pages include CIA logs and autopsy notes, they still leave the core question intact: Was Oswald truly alone?

Sources: CBS News (https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-executive-order-jfk-rfk-mlk-assassination-files/) and Al Jazeera (https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/1/24/new-jfk-assassination-files-what-was-revealed-about-oswald-and-cia-plots) reported on the executive order's implementation and findings.