Files still include deletions, redactions, and missing documents in the National Archives, but archivists are working to recover the originals.
WASHINGTON—Some newly released files related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy are missing key pieces of information, and others are completely absent from the records, The Epoch Times discovered while reviewing thousands of documents in person at the National Archives.
Approximately 80,000 documents were released on March 19 by President Donald Trump pursuant to an executive order he signed in January. Redactions and exemptions, however, leave the disclosure incomplete.
The White House referred questions related to the files to the National Archives and Records Administration, whose officials said disclosing all documents is a top priority.
“In keeping with the spirit of President Donald Trump’s commitment to maximum transparency and the March 18, 2025, release of files related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the National Archives has begun proactively reviewing [records] for maximum release,” a spokesperson for the archives administration told The Epoch Times by email on March 25.
With some historians looking for a smoking gun in the trove of papers, it’s the redactions that are raising the most questions, revealing a legacy of secrecy more than a half-century in the making.
The Epoch Times found boxes in the National Archives that contain thousands of still-redacted documents, including many that are stamped “sanitized,” a term used by intelligence agencies to describe pre-release deletions, according to archivists.
Files available for review at the archives are those not yet digitized or available online.
Documents seen in the locked archive stacks reveal significant portions of pages concealed by thick black marker, blank spaces eliminating text, and in at least one instance, rows of tape and a piece of paper used to hide sections of files.
“When those are found … archivists are alerting the file’s originating agency … and will hopefully be in a position to provide clean copies to researchers,” the archive spokesperson said.
Redacted items cover a wide range of topics, including thousands of pages contained in the work files of Russell Holmes, archivist for the CIA and JFK assassination historian.
Some documents, although they’ve been released, are practically illegible because of the quality of the scans or the source material.
Legible, unredacted records discovered by The Epoch Times include never-before-released testimony and thousands of records related to intelligence agency operations, surveillance, and investigations.
Key documents uncovered include the long sought-after, unredacted 72-page transcript of counterintelligence spy chief James Angleton’s statements to the Senate’s Church Committee regarding intelligence agency methods.
Others relate to operations meant to destabilize foreign governments, particularly Cuba, and efforts to monitor communist regimes around the globe.
