CIA officials helped Lee Harvey Oswald assassinate John F. Kennedy, an expert said when asked to predict the secrets of still-classified documents.
Trump vowed to share the secret files at an Arizona rally on Friday where JFK’s nephew Robert F. Kennedy Jr. solidified his defection from the Democratic party and endorsed the former president.
For years many have questioned the official narrative of what happened on November 22, 1963 in Dallas – specifically the Warren Commission’s finding that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.
Over 3,000 documents relating to the assassination still contain redactions and experts have speculated the concealed information will reveal Oswald was aided in the murder.
Renowned JFK scholar Jefferson Morley told The Washington Post he suspects Kennedy’s opponents in the CIA might have been working with Oswald.
‘Is there a smoking gun in there? You know, this is not about a smoking gun,’ Morley said.
‘This is about the law that says all of the government’s JFK records should be made public by October 2017. We’re seven years past that blown deadline.’
According to Morley the documents that have been released revealed that some CIA employees did not believe Oswald acted alone and a counterintelligence official tried to ‘wait out’ the Warren Commission’s investigation by denying it information about Oswald.
Trump pledged to establish a commission on assassination attempts that would also investigate the July 13 shooting of the former president in Butler, Pennsylvania.
‘This is a tribute in honor of Bobby. I will establish a new independent presidential commission on assassination attempts, and they will be tasked with releasing all of the remaining documents pertaining to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy,’ Trump said.
As president, Trump pledged to release the Kennedy files but announced in April 2018 that the public must wait several more years because the potential harm to national security, law enforcement or foreign affairs is ‘of such gravity that it outweighs the public interest in immediate disclosure.’
Some 19,000 records were released by the National Archives that same month.
‘I actually did do it. I released a lot, as you know, but when it came to the whole thing, I was hit by some people that work for me, who are great people that you would respect. They asked me not to do it,’ Trump said in an episode of the All-In podcast.
However, some experts are not confident Trump will follow through in his promise because the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992 ordered that files should be released by 2017.
Most presidents have used their discretion to keep records sealed over national security issues.
‘[Trump] had an opportunity to do it, you said you were going to do it, and you didn’t do it,’ Gerald Posner, author of the 1993 Kennedy assassination book ‘Case Closed,’ told the Post.
‘Now, with the RFK Jr. endorsement, maybe that’s a quid pro quo, and maybe this time he’ll actually do it.’
Posner said the remaining documents might show that the CIA was aware of Oswald before the assassination but believes he acted alone.