Trump signs executive order to release remaining classified JFK files to the public

The order includes files on Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr.

The order will also see files released on the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr and senator Robert F. Kennedy.

The incoming president signed this new order at the White House on Thursday (23 January).

An aide announced that the president was "ordering the declassification of files relating to the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, and Dr. Reverend Martin Luther King Jr."

While this was happening Trump said: "That's a big one, huh? A lot of people are waiting for this for a long — for years, for decades."

For those excited by the news, it won't be a long wait either, as Trump has ordered the director of national intelligence and the attorney general, both of which are still vacant positions, to spend the next 15 days drawing up a plan on how to release the JFK files to the public.

Following on from that, they will have 45 days to do the same with the RFK and MLK files.

The FBI is reportedly "complying" with the executive order, as per a statement given to CBS News.

The bureau added that the order "also requires designated agencies to submit a plan to the White House for 'the full and complete release of these records.'

It added: "The FBI is identifying records responsive to the EO and will work with the Department of Justice and ODNI (Office of the Director of National Intelligence) respectively."

More JFK files had been released in 2022, which the National Archives and Records Administration subsequently saying that 97% of the approximately 5 million pages related to the assassination were public. 

However, it is this remaining three percent as well as the number of released but redacted files that interest people.

In his first term, Donald Trump said he would release all the remaining JFK files, but never managed to so.

The remaining files total around 3000 documents never before seen by the public and 30,000 files that had been redacted.

In 1992, Congress mandated that all assassination documents were to be released within 25 years.