The Hill reports that Trump announced that the JFK files will finally be released at some point *TODAY* (March 18th, 2025).
“While we’re here, I thought it would be appropriate — we are, tomorrow, announcing and giving all of the Kennedy files. So, people have been waiting for decades for this, and I’ve instructed my people … lots of different people, [Director of National Intelligence] Tulsi Gabbard, that they must be released tomorrow,” the president told reporters while touring the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.
“You got a lot of reading. I don’t believe we’re going to redact anything. I said, ‘just don’t redact, you can’t redact,’” the president said, adding it will be about 80,000 pages that he described as “interesting.”
He said he has “heard about them” when asked if he has seen what’s in the files; he added, “I’m not doing summaries, you’ll write your own summary.”
Now the big question is: What’s in the files?
There are two main schools of thought:
1. There’s a severe case of overclassification in the federal government and that most certainly applies to these files. There’s stuff that was kept secret not because of any threat to national security but because the information, if public, would be embarrassing to a handful of powerful people and/or people in the charge of powerful people.
2. All of the good stuff in the files has been destroyed. We’re never going to learn the truth, man.
I suppose that there is a third school of thought where we’re going to learn a bombshell that will change everything we thought we knew about the 1960s… but that strikes me as exceptionally unlikely.
We’re either going to learn that the federal government inappropriately classified information that was embarrassing to itself *OR* we’re going to learn that the federal government inappropriately classified information that was a nothingburger.
And with those options being the main options, why not kick the can down the road a ways? Why confirm, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that the federal government inappropriately classifies things? Who wants to have *THAT* conversation with Congress?
“Is there anything else that the government has inappropriately classified?”
“I cannot think of anything, Congressman.”
But if something juicy *DOES* drop, please (I beg you!) share it in the comments.
Oh, there’s also the option of *NOTHING* new dropping. A replay of the Epstein drop from a couple of weeks ago.
If *THAT* happens, well, we’ll see the craziest folks turn on Trump the way they turned on Bondi.Report
JFK Assassination Mania was not the start of paranoid thinking in American politics. It was, though the milepost of that particular kind of brain rot entering mainstream discussion and even some official actions. (At least, since its submergence after the failure of the aptly-named Know-Nothing Party.)Report
I’d probably put the start of the modern version of paranoid thinking in American Politics smack dab in the middle of Prohibition when Hoover was denying the existence of the mafia and, indeed, denied its existence until the 1950s.Report
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote an article for the New Zealand Skeptics society where I argued that the Kennedy assassination conspiracies, along with the moon hoax conspiracy and the UFO conspiracy helped lay much of the intellectual groundwork for QAnon.Report
probably. Good point.Report
Everybody always thinks that their pet conspiracies are like MKULTRA or Operation Mockingbird but most of them are like the conspiracy theory that says that Covid came from a lab.Report
The occam’s razor of conspiracy theories is not to attribute to intentional malfeasance emerging from smoke filled rooms that which is adequately explained by incompetence and a*s covering.Report
If we could allow for “conspiracy theories” to also cover stuff like “the authorities covering stuff up, obfuscating the truth, and opposing the story of what actually happened coming to light by pushing forward narratives that were not accurate”, then we’d find ourselves awash in conspiracies.
Better to narrow it down to the point where it only covers stuff like “covid wasn’t a deliberate biological weapon released to harm America, it came from a wet market”.Report
One of the reasons I like to talk about the Roswell Incident when it comes to conspiracy theories is that the government actually was covering something up during the Roswell Incident, it just wasn’t what the UFO conspiracy people thought it was.Report
No Jack Ruby, no conspiracy theories.Report
That’s how a conspiracy works.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxlNi0OcVnw&ab_channel=ZaherArraf
I’d be STUNNED if any real news comes out this……Report
Why do you continue to fall for this?Report
Part of holding power accountable is documenting what it says.
We are speeding toward 5PM EDT and, still, nothing’s come out except for a bunch of humorous tweets showing typewritten letters allegedly from JFK announcing that he has evidence that will result in the arrest of Hillary Clinton.Report
“That is one magic loogie.”Report
Obviously it was Roger McDowell.Report
5:15 PM Eastern Daylight Saving Time.
No files.
Clank.Report
Hahahahahaha!
You got okayed. Again.
Hahahahahahaha.Report
You know, I’m beginning to suspect that there’s stuff in there that they actively do not want to become public.Report
Ted Cruz furiously [CTRL-F / Replace] through the remaining documents…
Trump’s final humiliation / gift.Report
I honestly expected more news stories to be laughing gleefully about how Trump said something to the effect of “promises kept” about the JFK files release and… we still ain’t got nothin’.
This is a major L, as the kids say, for Trump! The news should be positively crowing!Report
YOU DON’T NEED A SIGNATURE TO RELEASE THE FILESReport
I guess that this is part of it: U.S. Justice Department orders national-security lawyers to review JFK documents
Jam tomorrow.
Jam yesterday.Report
Okay, am I the only person here with enough knowledge of the intelligence community to think that the Operations Section of the Office of Intelligence of the Department of Justice is a _weird_ place to do that review?
That’s the people who do FISA warrants and have general oversight over the intelligence community. It’s not particularly large, either. Since when does the JFK assassination have _anything_ to do with the intelligence community?
I guess if you want to keep it in DoJ, but _not_ do it at the FBI, there’s not much choice, but why the hell aren’t you doing it in the FBI? They’re the ones who conduced the investigation!
Anyway, the files were just released.Report
Dang, here they are. Time to open a few at random…Report
Project DTLAMPREY. Huh. Never heard of it. It was cover for a fund to help out non-communist teachers.Report
Oooh, the Yuri Nosenko file.
He’s got a wikipedia page.Report
This one is interesting: President’s Intelligence Checklist.
I’ve heard of these but never seen one before.Report
Imagine having a President who would care about this information, read the document, and think about such things.Report
Man, no wonder they wanted to keep this under wraps!Report
Those club championships aren’t going to win themselves, buster.Report
Be careful out there. I’ve seen a number of people saying “holy cow, I can’t believe the files contain (risible claim)!” and a screenshot of a document without naming it.
I’ve seen a couple of these where it was a document released back in 2023.
One time I even saw a guy claim “document #(number here) says (risible claim)!” and a screenshot of the document and I went to the website and looked up that specific document and, wouldn’t you know it, it was all about Cuba and whatnot and had nothing to do with (risible claim).
So check and double-check.Report