In one of his first acts upon reassuming the presidency last month, Donald Trump issued an executive order directing officials to present a plan for the “full and complete release” of all records related to the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, and the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.

For decades, documents pertaining to these national tragedies have been withheld—or heavily censored—by the US government. Last week, pursuant to the president’s executive order, intelligence officials reportedly submitted a proposed file-release plan to the White House. While the itinerary is still unknown, the JFK records will come first; a plan to unseal heretofore withheld RFK and MLK documents will follow. Already though, FBI officials say that 2,400 records from the bureau’s files (some thought to be previously undisclosed) have allegedly just surfaced. Nothing yet is known about this new cache, but as Axios has reported , one Trump adviser has predicted that the documents might “just suddenly wind up online.”

Since I have recently spent time studying the history of 1963—President Kennedy’s last year alive–I am intrigued, above all, by the pending release of the JFK files. (I have written three pieces for Vanity Fair on President Kennedy. Links to those stories appear near the end of this article.)

Many may wonder: Why does the JFK assassination still transfix us, even 62 years later? And why does the MAGA crowd bring new and vigorous energy to the prospect of the final release of all the JFK records? If you doubt that this controversy still has legs in 21st-century America, think of the Warren Commission’s report, in 1964; the House investigation on assassinations, released in 1978; Don DeLillo ’s novel Libra, in 1988; Oliver Stone ’s film JFK , in 1991; and the work of the Assassination Records Review Board, created by an act passed by Congress, with the target for a complete public airing of the entirety of the JFK assassination archive by October 2017.

And yet, despite the release of a substantial number of files—including batches made public by Trump in 2017 and then Joe Biden during his term in office—both presidents, at the behest of the intelligence services, further delayed full declassification. Little wonder that US citizens still want to know why there has been a delay, what’s left to disseminate, and which agencies have been the most resistant to compliance. (Again, the Mary Ferrell Foundation website is a useful resource for a listing of all of the dispensed records through 2025.)

So who to turn to for the best take on the forthcoming release? I asked JFK assassination expert Jefferson Morley to explain the significance of the executive order, what discoveries might come to light, and why MAGA-world seems to regard this as an important issue for our current age. Since 1992, Morley has been leading the charge for full release of the JFK files. He brings a journalist’s skills to the task and is the curator of the highly respected JFK Facts podcast and Substack blog.

While some knowledgeable observers continue to believe that assassin Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in killing John F. Kennedy, many contend that there are other potential conspirators who could have had their own motives for wanting to see the president removed from power. Among the suspects are Fidel Castro (whom American operatives had previously tried to kill); the Soviets (then engaged in a cold war with the US); the Mafia (whose leadership was under investigation by the FBI and JFK’s brother, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy); and even JFK’s own vice president, Lyndon B. Johnson. And then there was the Central Intelligence Agency. It is the CIA’s unreleased files, in particular, that are of keenest interest to Morley. Herein, he explains why.