JFK Assassination Documents to be Released Thursday

President Donald Trump said Wednesday that the JFK assassination files will be released on Thursday.

“The long anticipated release of the #JFKFiles will take place tomorrow,” Trump tweeted. “So interesting!”

Conspiracy theorists and Camelot lore aficionados are excited about the release but a judge who reviewed the records warned that they might be disappointed.

Minnesota Federal Judge John Tunheim served on the Assassination Records Review Board (AARB) more than 20 years ago and he told the Washington Examiner that the group of 30 document reviewers protected only a small percentage of the documents and only for “intelligence-gathering information.”

“So, it might have been the name of an intelligence agent which we protected until we thought that they probably would no longer be with us. Those names have already all been released in the intervening 20 years or so. But sources and methods of intelligence gathering, details of intelligence sharing relationships with foreign governments, foreign informants, a lot of that protected information had to do with the American government’s intelligence and law enforcement relationships with foreign countries – that was a particularly sensitive area, and we agreed to more redactions on that basis. That is what the information is that will hopefully be released this week.”

While Judge Tunheim sought to play down the conspiracies that may or may not come out tomorrow, he said that he felt the documents should be made public.

“I believe that it’s time to release everything if for no other reason than some assurance that we can give to people who are interested in the subject that the government is no longer hiding information that relates to the Kennedy assassination,” Tunheim said.

The release of the documents comes on the date set by the John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992. But, the law does give the president power to hold back documents in the name of national security. Trump’s earlier tweet indicates that he has no intention of stopping the release.