Trump (L) has promised to release the full remaining documents on the assassination. (Image: Getty)
could come to regret a key pledge he made on the campaign trail, with his inauguration as President now just weeks away, a journalist claims.
During his successful bid for a second term in the White House, delighted many by promising to reveal more about the assassination of former US commander-in-chief John F. Kennedy, who was shot dead in his motorcade while driving through Dallas, , on Nov 22, 1963.
Lee Harvey Oswald, a US Marine veteran accused by authorities of shooting Kennedy from the nearby School Book Repository Building, was himself shot dead on live television by nightclub owner Jack Ruby as he was being moved by police, and before he could stand trial.
On the day of the gun attack, Oswald shouted to reporters “I’m just a patsy!” (in other words that he was blamed for it despite not being responsible), and was dead before he could go into further detail before a jury, depriving Americans of the full story of what happened.
The shocking killing has become fertile ground for a slew of conspiracy theories, partly due to the refusal of successive Presidents to release all the files on the events surrounding it.
Donald Trump (Image: Getty)
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Kennedy’s assassination on Nov 22, 1963, has been shrouded in mystery for decades. (Image: Getty)
All government documents about the assassination were to be made publicly available by October 2017 under an act passed in 1992, though the release of some of them could be delayed for “national security” and “privacy” reasons, the reports.
Trump, 78, did release some files during his first term, though others were held back. The property mogul-turned-politician has previously said he was urged by Secretary of State and former CIA director Mike Pompeo reconsider an earlier promise to make all the papers public, saying “it needs a little more time”, claimed the CIA was “probably” behind the intervention.
Questions have long been raised about Oswald’s motives, given that he was a committed Left-Winger, and Kennedy was a Democrat and liberal who had championed civil rights.
The official federal investigation into JFK’s killing, known as The Warren Commission, concluded the following year that Oswald, 24, acted alone and found no evidence of a conspiracy to murder the President.
But many Americans continue to believe that there is more to the story, with a poll last year finding that 65 per cent don’t believe he acted alone, reports.
However as he campaigned for office again this year, promised JFK’s nephew, Robert F Kennedy Jr, that the final remaining documents would be released in full.
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The Daily Mail’s US Correspondent Tom Leonard said if the President elect does so, “experts predict he will face a determined battle from an organisation once notorious for ruthless political scheming and dirty tricks”.
“So what might be in those final redacted files?” he added. “For one thing, JFK assassination sleuths expect further evidence that CIA bosses shamelessly lied when they repeatedly claimed they knew nothing about Oswald before the killing.”
There are said to be some 3,100 documents held back out of the original 320,000. Currently held in the US national archives, the papers, which are either partially or completely censored, have been a focus for those looking to uncover the mystery surrounding Kennedy’s untimely death.
The CIA has been approached for comment via its online contact form.
A spokesperson for the agency insisted to the Washington Post in 2022 that it was not withholding information about either the assassination or Oswald.
“The CIA believes all substantive information known to be directly related to Oswald has been released,” they said.
“The few remaining redactions protect CIA employee names, sources, locations and CIA tradecraft.”