Later this year - unless President Trump intervenes - the American people will get access to the last of thousands of secret government files about a turning point in the nation's history: the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The National Archives this week released several hundred of the documents, which come from CIA and FBI files. JFK researchers are scrambling to see whether they contain any new clues about the president's murder. But many more documents remain under seal, awaiting release by this October, the 25-year deadline set by the 1992 Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act. The law gives only one person - the president - the ability to stop the release from happening. He can act only if he certifies in writing that the documents would somehow endanger national security. About 3,150 ... documents remain totally under seal, along with tens of thousands of pages that have been only partially unsealed because intelligence and law-enforcement agencies opposed their release in the 1990s. Those are the documents that Trump could try to keep secret. And sadly, he appears to be under pressure to do so. Congressional and other government officials have warned us in confidence in recent weeks that at least two federal agencies will make formal appeals to the White House to block the release of some of the files. Which agencies? Which files? The officials would not say. Trump ... has a chance to show that he is committed to resolving some of the biggest conspiracy theories in American politics. We hope he welcomes the opportunity.
Latest
Latest News
Each news summary is created according to strict standards. Here's how we do it.
Each summary is created using a consistent editorial procedure. The target length is approximately 16 lines of 11-point Arial text in a 650-pixel-wide column. Up to 25% of a summary may be set in bold to emphasize the most important ideas. Summaries are composed of verbatim excerpts presented in the same sequence as they appear in the original news source, with very minor editorial additions. Where material has been omitted between excerpts, the omission is indicated with ellipses (...). Any words added by an editor for clarity or context appear in [brackets]. Our original news editor was Fred Burks. Tod Fletcher edited most summaries from 2007 through 2014, and Mark Bailey has served as news editor since 2014.