Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health and human services secretary, has long believed in conspiracy theories about the assassinations of his uncle, former President John F. Kennedy, who died in 1963, and his father, Robert F. Kennedy, who was shot while campaigning for president in 1968.
He has also long called for the release of all records surrounding President Kennedy’s death, telling Politico in 2021 that the government’s delay in releasing the documents was “an outrage against American democracy.”
On Tuesday, his call was answered when the National Archive declassified a new trove of documents in response to an executive order issued by President Trump on Jan. 23.
But those files may not answer many lingering questions about the assassination of President Kennedy, as most of the government records surrounding the event have already been released. In 2023, the National Archives estimated that more than 99 percent of the records in its collection of approximately five million pages had been made available to the public.
Still, in January Mr. Kennedy celebrated the executive order demanding the release of more documents and thanked Mr. Trump.
“The 60-year strategy of lies and secrecy, disinformation, censorship, and defamation employed by Intel officials to obscure and suppress troubling facts about J.F.K.’s assassination has provided the playbook for a series of subsequent crises,” Mr. Kennedy posted on X.
Mr. Kennedy has cast doubts on the findings of the Warren Commission, which was established in 1963 to investigate the assassination of President Kennedy. The investigation found that Lee Harvey Oswald, who was arrested after the crime, acted alone.
In an interview in 2013, Mr. Kennedy said his father had believed the report to be “a shoddy piece of craftmanship.”
“He publicly supported the Warren Commission report but privately he was dismissive of it,” he said of his father.
“The evidence at this point I think is very, very convincing that it was not a lone gunman,” he added. He did not elaborate on what he believed had happened.
Over the years, the findings of the Warren Commission have been questioned in some circles as conspiracy theories about the assassination gained a foothold in America’s collective psyche and popular culture.
Mr. Kennedy repeated those claims about the commission when he ran as an independent in the 2024 presidential race. In a 2023 radio interview, Mr. Kennedy claimed there was “overwhelming evidence” that the C.I.A. was involved in his uncle’s murder.
“I think it’s beyond a reasonable doubt at this point,” he said.
And in a May 2023 interview with Fox News, he claimed that Allen W. Dulles, a C.I.A. director fired by President Kennedy, helped cover up evidence of the organization’s involvement when he served on the Warren Commission.
“It was my father’s first instinct that the agency had killed his brother,” he said.
Most members of the extended Kennedy family have not publicly expressed doubts about investigation of the assassination.
But Jack Schlossberg, a grandson of President Kennedy, offered his view of the executive order.
“JFK conspiracy theories — The truth is alot sadder than the myth — a tragedy that didn’t need to happen. Not part of an inevitable grand scheme,” he posted on X, hours after Mr. Trump signed the order in January.
“Declassification is using JFK as a political prop, when he’s not here to punch back,” he said. “There’s nothing heroic about it.”
