Update: Release postponed again
Oct. 22, 2021: U.S. President Joe Biden has postponed until at least December of 2022 the legally required release of the remainder of federal JFK assassination documents. A White House statement indicated that the delay had been requested by National Archives, which is dealing with COVID-19 pandemic-related backlogs in document processing. According to the statement, the President has ordered National Archives to complete an intensive review of the remaining secret files by December 15, 2022, and to make electronic copies of all JFK files available to the public online. The statement suggests that some currently withheld documents - those already designated as suitable for release - could be provided by National Archives a year earlier, December 15, 2021. Our original Sept. 30 post follows:
About one month remains before President Joe Biden is due to decide if the remaining redactions will be lifted from federal Kennedy Assassination records.
During the Trump Administration, a number of CIA records were released and redactions were removed from many National Archives documents. These contained no "blockbuster" revelations about the Nov. 22, 1963, assassination of President John Kennedy but some interesting details. President Donald Trump decided at that time that other records should continue to be withheld from public scrutiny for three years past the October 26, 2017, expected release date.
U.S. Chief Archivist David Ferriero was scheduled to make a recommendation on the remaining records to President Biden this past Sunday (September 26, 2021). The following day, the Public Interest Declassification Board wrote to the President:
"We understand that agencies are asking you to extend the postponement of public disclosure... The Board unanimously recommends that you limit any further postponements of public disclosures of the Kennedy assassination records to the absolute minimum."
A 1992 law (the JFK Act) related to Kennedy assassination records called for all records to be released after twenty-five years unless the President decided that postponement was necessary on the grounds of "identifiable harm to the military defense, intelligence operations, law enforcement, or foreign relations... [that] outweighs the public interest in disclosure."
According to the National Archives and Records Administration, there are remaining redactions in 15,834 documents - most of these created by the CIA. NARA states that 520 full documents, still withheld and not identified by the agency, are not subject to the JFK Act.
Related posts:
- Many, but not all, JFK files released (Oct. 27, 2017)
- CIA joins with Mafia in effort to kill Castro (Oct. 30, 2017)
- JFK wait extended three and a half more years (April 28, 2018)
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