Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it’s investigating the financials of Elon Musk’s pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, ‘The A Word’, which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.
The FBI says it has found 2,400 new pages of documents about the assassination of John F. Kennedy following President Donald Trump’s decision to release the highly classified files.
In a statement on Tuesday, the FBI said due to “technologic advances” of the bureau’s record keeping processes, a new search carried out in January this year following Trump’s executive order unearthed new records relating to Kennedy’s assassination.
“The FBI conducted a new records search pursuant to President Trump’s Executive Order issued on January 23, 2025, regarding the declassification of the assassination files of JFK, RFK, and MLK,” the bureau said. “The search resulted in approximately 2400 newly inventoried and digitized records that were previously unrecognized as related to the JFK assassination case file.”
The bureau did not specify what the records contain but said it is working to transfer the documents to the National Archives and Records Administration to be included in the declassification process.
Jefferson Morley, vice president of the Mary Ferrell Foundation, a repository for files related to the assassination, called the FBI’s disclosure of the files “refreshingly candid.”
“It shows that the FBI is serious about being transparent,” Morley, who is also editor of the JFK Facts blog, said.
He said it sets a precedent for other agencies to come forward with documents that haven’t yet been turned over to the National Archives.
But some of Kennedy’s family members have hit out at the decision. In January, Jack Schlossberg, Kennedy’s grandson, said that Trump was “no hero” for ordering the release of the files.
“The truth is a lot sadder than the myth — a tragedy that didn’t need to happen. Not part of an inevitable grand scheme,” Schlossberg, who often shared political and satirical commentary online before disabling his social media accounts this week, wrote on X.
“Declassification is using JFK as a political prop, when he’s not here to punch back. There’s nothing heroic about it,” the 32-year-old said.
Trump’s order last month directed the national intelligence director and attorney general to develop a plan to release classified records related to Kennedy’s assassination.
“A lot of people are waiting for this for a long time, for years, for decades,” Trump said at the time, before adding that “everything will be revealed” about the assassination.
A George H.W. Bush-era law had required the release of all JFK assassination records in October 2017, and during Trump’s first term, numerous records were indeed declassified and made public, but many remained hidden for years after.
The assassination has fueled conspiracy theories for decades. Kennedy was fatally shot in downtown Dallas on November 22, 1963, as his motorcade passed in front of the Texas School Book Depository building, where 24-year-old assassin Lee Harvey Oswald positioned himself from a sniper’s perch on the sixth floor. Two days after Kennedy was killed, nightclub owner Jack Ruby fatally shot Oswald during a jail transfer.
The Warren Commission, established by then-President Lyndon B. Johnson to investigate the assassination, found that Oswald acted alone and that there was no evidence of a conspiracy. But that conclusion never quelled a web of alternative theories over the decades.
Gerald Posner, author of Case Closed, which concludes that Oswald acted alone, said it’s possible that the newly discovered files are repeats of documents that are already in the National Archives’ collection or they could be documents the review board for the collection had previously said it didn’t want.
“If they are really new assassination documents, then it raises a whole bunch of questions about how they were missed for all of these years,” Posner said.
He said the “wow” would be if they are related to Oswald or the investigation.
The documents released over the past several years from the collection have offered details on the way intelligence services operated at the time, and include CIA cables and memos discussing visits by Oswald to the Soviet and Cuban embassies during a trip to Mexico City just weeks before the assassination.
The former Marine had previously defected to the Soviet Union before returning home to Texas.
Morley said the CIA’s surveillance of Oswald has been the “emerging story over the last five to 10 years.” He said there could be information on that in the new files.
The AP contributed
