An expert has noted that crucial details were absent from the JFK assassination files released by the Trump administration on Tuesday. Author James Johnston told USA Today that the transcript of the initial conversation between President Lyndon Johnson and CIA Director John McCone following the 1963 assassination has yet to be released. He added that this document could help shed light on potential Cuban involvement in Kennedy’s killing, especially considering the president’s well-known attempts to use the CIA to target communist dictator Fidel Castro.
Politico reported that McCone had been accused of withholding “incendiary” information from the Warren Commission during its investigation into the assassination. The undisclosed details involved plots to assassinate Castro, suggesting that the CIA was “in cahoots with the mafia.” Without this information, the Commission never explored the possibility that Oswald might have had accomplices in Cuba or elsewhere—individuals who could have sought retaliation against JFK for his attempt on Castro’s life. McCone’s cover-up was described as “benign,” with him and other top CIA officials aiming to steer the investigation toward Lee Harvey Oswald, whom they believed acted alone.
Following an order from President Donald Trump, more than 63,000 pages of records related to President Kennedy’s 1963 assassination were released Tuesday—many without the redactions that had long puzzled historians and fueled conspiracy theories. The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration posted roughly 2,200 files containing these documents on its website.
The records include typewritten reports and handwritten notes spanning decades. Among the details are claims from a top CIA agent that the deep state was responsible, assertions that Oswald was a “poor shot,” and indications that the Secret Service had been warned as early as August—three months before the assassination—that Kennedy was in danger.
The release of the files caught Trump’s national security team off guard, as they spent 24 hours assessing potential security risks before publication. When the files were released at around 7 p.m., they sparked widespread criticism. Liberals dismissed the move as a mere repeat of a similar release by Joe Biden years ago, while MAGA supporters were upset that the documents still contained redactions and unanswered questions, leading experts to call them “impenetrable.”
Most of the National Archives’ extensive collection—over 6 million pages of records, photographs, films, sound recordings, and artifacts related to the assassination—had already been made public. Before Tuesday, researchers estimated that between 3,000 and 3,500 files remained unreleased, either entirely or partially. Additionally, just last month, the FBI announced it had uncovered approximately 2,400 new records related to the assassination.
Jefferson Morley, vice president of the Mary Ferrell Foundation—a repository for assassination files—stated on X that the release is “an encouraging start.” He added that much of the excessive classification of trivial information has been removed from the documents.