President Donald Trump concluded that classified portions of the files related to the assassination of former President John F. Kennedy will remain secret for at least the next three years.
The White House released a memorandum from Trump Thursday morning that cited "identifiable national security, law enforcement, and foreign affairs concerns."
Trump made the JFK files public last fall, but some of the records were withheld because they were still classified. Government officials spent the last several months looking through the documents and concluded that keeping them classified is necessary, so they passed their findings to the Archivist of the United States David Ferriero.
"I agree with the archivist's recommendation that the continued withholdings are necessary to protect against identifiable harm to national security, law enforcement, or foreign affairs that is of such gravity that it outweighs the public interest in immediate disclosure," Trump said.
"I am also ordering agencies to re-review each of those redactions over the next three years. At any time during that review period, and no later than the end of that period, agencies shall disclose information that no longer warrants continued withholding."
Trump set a date of Oct. 26, 2021 to release the classified records, although he gave officials a deadline of Sept. 26, 2021 to make a determination of whether the documents should continue to remain classified and out of public view.
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