Whether you voted for him or not, there’s one thing about Donald Trump that everyone can agree on: he likes to keep his promises. For example, he has touted the benefits of having a more transparent government, and his supporters largely applaud this goal because they want him to “drain the swamp” of Washington, DC by showing more traditional politicians how it’s done.
Sometimes, though, Trump’s plans to keep his promises backfire in unexpected ways. For example, the president just declassified 80,000 documents pertaining to the assassination of John F. Kennedy, Jr. His death has been the source of countless conspiracy theories, and many were hoping the release of these classified documents would provide some of the answers they were looking for. Unfortunately, this mass declassification ended up leaving many disappointed in both Donald Trump and what they discovered in the files.
What was revealed in these secret files, and why did it leave so many people disappointed? Keep reading to find out!
JFK’s death: the ultimate conspiracy theory
On paper, everyone knows exactly how John F. Kennedy, Jr. was killed. On November 22, 1963, the president was fatally shot by Lee Harvey Oswald, who was hiding in the Texas School Book Depository. Pretty straightforward, right? However, almost from the beginning, many have doubted the idea that someone so powerful was taken out by a lone gunman. And the most basic conspiracy theory related to his death is that there was a second gunman, making Oswald a convenient patsy.
There are more elaborate conspiracies, of course, including ones that JFK’s murder was planned by groups ranging from the mob to Cuban exiles. And plenty of people think that he was secretly killed by the CIA because he was a threat to their operations or because he was about to reveal some major secret to the public. Some believe the secret was the existence of aliens, though we can’t help but think this sounds more like a discarded plot from an old X-Files episode than anything else.
RELATED: Presidential Television Interviews That Went Off the Rails
Donald Trump’s massive declassification of JFK documents
It’s not entirely clear if Donald Trump (who was 17 when JFK was killed) ever personally believed in any of the conspiracies regarding the presidential assassination. Regardless of what he does or doesn’t believe, though, Trump has historically been very invested in showing the public as much of these classified documents as possible. For example, in 2018, Trump declassified thousands of documents related to the assassination, but he recently outdid himself in a big way.
Most recently, Trump declassified a whopping 80,000 documents related to JFK’s assassination. As the New York Post reports, he made a big show of this, declaring from the Kennedy Center that the people have “been waiting for that for decades. And I said during the campaign I’d release them, and I’m a man of my word…so tomorrow you have the JFK files.”
What made things really enticing for conspiracy theorists is that Trump floated the idea of releasing unredacted files. But while these files gave us more info than we ever had before, they still ended up disappointing those hoping for either major revelations about the assassination or complete transparency from the government.
What was Trump’s motivation for releasing this information?
As we noted before, Donald Trump may or may not be a big believer in conspiracy theories regarding John F. Kennedy, Jr. Why, then, did he push for declassifying all these files? Certainly, this seems like a strange thing to focus on amid ongoing concerns for the economy.
In part, Trump was motivated by his desire to follow through on his campaign promises. But what made the release of these files such a major campaign promise in the first place? Mostly, this seems to go back to Trump’s desire for more government transparency, something that most of his supporters approve of. By declassifying these documents, Trump can continue to show his followers that he’s a maverick who won’t play by the rules of others.
For at least some of his fans, though, Trump’s actions left them disappointed and more in search of transparency than ever before.
RELATED: The Most Embarrassing Presidential Moments Caught On Camera
Why the JFK documents disappointed so many people
While some of Donald Trump’s biggest supporters are happy with the glut of declassified files, many are more than a bit disappointed. Why is that? For one thing, a great many files still remain locked up and heavily classified. That means that those hoping for complete governmental transparency about this matter are largely left wondering which secrets may still be hidden away after all these decades.
Making matters worse is that these declassified files don’t really provide much in the way of info that we didn’t have before. Way back in 1964, the Warren Commission determined exactly how John F. Kennedy, Jr. died and exactly who did it. These declassified documents back up the commission’s conclusions, which has disappointed many conspiracy theorists. Needless to say, some of those theorists are still active and are convinced that the government is still keeping major secrets about JFK’s death from ever seeing the light of day.