JFK in Dallas, Nov. 22, 1963

WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a chaotic chapter of government efforts to suppress research into the evidence regarding President Kennedy’s 1963 assassination, President Trump on Oct. 26 suddenly backed away from his promises this week to comply with a 1992 Congressional law and release all remaining documents related to the assassination.

The president released in full via the National Archives website at about 7:30 p.m. some 2,891 remaining documents after a conference call with news reporters beginning at 5:46 p.m. This followed a day in which many in the public long focused on the document release were left wondering until after normal business hours what was happening.

Update: One expert suggested privately to fellow researchers that his preliminary review of the documents and the initial media coverage indicates vast confusion in the news coverage, as follows:

Most journalists who mentioned the numbers of documents in their initial reporting implied that the released documents, 2,891, came from the trove of some 3,100 that had been expected to be released in full on Oct. 26. Instead, the expert said, at least 98 percent of the released documents appeared to be from the larger universe of some 30,000 documents that had been previously released with partial redactions.

In other words, the new information may be far less than implied by initial news reports, even those from major news organizations. A further implication is that staff disorganization in the White House must have been at a monumental level for a 25-year project — regarding the murder of Kennedy in broad daylight in what’s been called “The Crime of the Century” — to crash into such confusion and secrecy on its deadline day.

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Originally published by the Justice Integrity Project.