In an early morning tweet today (Oct. 21) Donald Trump announced that he wouldn’t block the scheduled release of the last tranche of government files on the assassination of US president John F. Kennedy.
A casual reading of the statement would imply that the president is taking a proactive step to release these documents, however “allowing” in this case actually means “not blocking.” The records in question are required to be released by Oct. 26. by the 1992 Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act. The release of the documents would proceed without any action from the president, however under the law it could be blocked with presidential intervention.
A National Security Council official told the Washington Post that some government agencies recently asked the president to withhold some documents. It is possible that the documents will not be released in full. Politico reported yesterday that a complete release was in flux and that researchers could expect partial and redacted files. Come Thursday, we’ll know for sure.