FBI says it has discovered new files on JFK assassination

In this April 30, 1963 file photo, President John F. Kennedy listens while Grand Duchess Charlotte of Luxembourg speaks outside the White House in Washington. (AP Photo/William J. Smith)

WASHINGTON — The FBI has discovered about 2,400 new records related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy from a new records search following an executive order from President Donald Trump.

The FBI said in a statement Monday that it performed a new search of records following Trump’s January 23 executive order, which directed the release of more documents related to the assassinations of JFK, Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr.

“The search resulted in approximately 2,400 newly inventoried and digitized records that were previously unrecognized as related to the JFK assassination case file,” the bureau said in a statement.

Axios first reported on the discovery. The statement does not provide additional information about what the records say.

Since 2020, the FBI began collecting closed case paper files from FBI field offices across the country to be housed in its “Central Records Complex” in Virginia. The FBI said it can now more quickly comb through and find records as a result of the “more comprehensive” inventory and “technologic advances in automating” its record-keeping processes.

The FBI said it is working to turn over the documents to the National Archives and Records Administration to be included in the “ongoing declassification process.”

During Trump’s first term, the US government released more than 2,800 records related to JFK’s assassination to comply with a 1992 law mandating the documents’ release. Roughly 300 files, however, were classified out of concern for US national security, law enforcement and foreign relations. Another document release came in 2018.

In 2023, the Biden administration said the National Archives had concluded its review of the classified JFK assassination documents, with 99 per cent of the records having been publicly released.

Trump vowed during his 2024 campaign to unseal all the documents related to the JFK assassination, which has been the subject of several conspiracy theories.

Kennedy was shot and killed on November 22, 1963, while riding in an open convertible limousine through downtown Dallas. Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested and charged in Kennedy’s assassination but was killed before he could stand trial.

CNN’s Alejandra Jaramillo and Kevin Liptak contributed to this report.