On Saturday, the New York Times reported that President Donald Trump would declassify a cache of documents related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, who was killed in 1963. The files are set to be released on Thursday, the deadline Congress set to make them public. Trump could have blocked their release, but says he won’t.
“The long anticipated release of the #JFKFiles will take place tomorrow. So interesting!,” Trump tweeted on Wednesday morning.
The National Archive is due to release the files after making other JFK files public back in July.
The Warren Commission, in its report released in 1964, concluded that assassin Lee Harvey Oswald had acted alone, but much of the documents related to their investigation were sealed. Many Americans were very skeptical that the Commission’s account of the event was accurate. Conspiracy theories have persisted over the years, bubbling up in 1992 when Congress passed a law mandating that the National Archives make the documents available to the public in 25 years…which is of course this year. Politico explains that Trump could block the release of the documents, but his statements Saturday double down on his intentions to make the records public.
So what does this mean, exactly? Well, most practically, it could settle long-standing conspiracy rumors. Alternately, it could also kick off another wave of X-Files-level paranoia among theorists. Politico explains that many of the documents recount Oswald’s trip to Mexico, just weeks before he fatally shot Kennedy in Dallas.
Some of the more popular JFK conspiracy theories involve the mafia, Cuban nationalists, and Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, who was sworn in as President while Jackie Kennedy was still covered in blood and body matter from JFK’s shooting.
Theories aside, the documents will undoubtably counter Trump’s bizarre assertion on the campaign trail that Senator Ted Cruz’s dad was once linked to Lee Harvey Oswald.
