The Kennedy family has been wrought with fresh division over Donald Trump’s decision to release the final classified files on John F Kennedy’s assassination.
Robert Kennedy Jr, Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Health and Services, said he approves of Trump’s decision to declassify the files relating to the infamous 1963 murder of his uncle.
‘I think it’s a great move because they need to have more transparency in our government and he’s keeping his promise to have the government tell the truth to the American people about everything,’ RFK Jr told reporters on Thursday.
RFK Jr has previously repeated conspiracy theories that the CIA was involved in his uncle’s assassination.
His approval of the files’ release is starkly in contrast with comments made by JFK’s grandson Jack Schlossberg, who issued a harsh rebuke to the order.
‘The truth is a lot sadder than the myth — a tragedy that didn’t need to happen,’ Schlossberg wrote on X on Thursday.
‘Not part of an inevitable grand scheme. Declassification is using JFK as a political prop, when he’s not here to punch back. There’s nothing heroic about it.’
Trump ordered the declassification of the final files Thursday. It’s unclear what new information they’ll contain on the notorious shooting murder of the president as he was driven through downtown Dallas in an open-topped Lincoln limousine.
Robert Kennedy Jr, who is nominated to be part of Donald Trump’s cabinet, has long asked for the files of his uncle John F Kennedy’s assassination to be fully released
His approval of the files’ release is in contrast with comments made by JFK’s grandson Jack Schlossberg
In the past, other members of the Kennedy family have supported the release of the files, including former Rhode Island Rep. Patrick Kennedy.
‘I think for the good of the country, everything has to be put out there so there’s greater understanding of our history,’ Patrick Kennedy said in 2021, as reported by Politico.
Other members of the Kennedy family have supported the release of the files, including former Rhode Island Rep. Patrick Kennedy
Conspiracy theories – which is how Schlossberg labeled what those interested in the files wanted to find out about – continue to swirl 60 years after the killing.
Any new information will excite the amateur sleuths who continue to wonder whether there is more to the story than just a lone gunman in the shape of Lee Harvey Oswald.
Trump signed an executive order that directs his Director of National Intelligence to put together a plan within 15 days for the full release of documents about the JFK assassination.
‘That’s a big one, huh?’ he said as he scrawled his signature on the order, before asking that the pen be given to RFK Jr. ‘A lot of people are waiting for this for a long … for years, for decades.
‘Everything will be revealed.’
The executive order, obtained by DailyMail.com, said: ‘More than 50 years after the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, and the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the Federal Government has not released to the public all of its records related to those events.
Schlossberg, JFK’s only grandson and a social media favorite, took to X to furiously criticize the files’ release and the hype over the information finally coming out
US President John F Kennedy, First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, Texas Governor John Connally, and others smile at the crowds lining their motorcade route in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963. Minutes later the President was assassinated as his car passed through Dealey Plaza
‘Their families and the American people deserve transparency and truth. It is in the national interest to finally release all records related to these assassinations without delay.’
His intelligence chiefs will have 45 days to put together a plan to release the RFK and King archives.
Millions of pages of JFK documents have already been released leaving only a few thousand kept in the archives.
The most recent releases included CIA cables and memos recording visits by Oswald to the Cuban and Soviet embassies in Mexico City weeks before the assassination.
And experts doubt there are any major revelations lurking in the archives that would change the accepted version of events.
Oswald shown after his arrest. He was later shot dead by nightclub owner Jack Ruby in a moment captured live on television
Lee Harvey Oswald was accused of shooting and killing JFK from a window at the Texas Book Depository building on November 22 1963.
Oswald was himself shot and killed two days later, live on TV, by businessman Jack Ruby.
That sparked allegations of a cover-up.
Those who don’t believe Oswald was the killer, or that he was acting alone, have long claimed a second shooter was present on a grassy knoll that JFK and wife Jacqueline Kennedy drove past as the shooting started.