President Donald Trump’s executive order to declassify the JFK files left one of the 35th president’s descendants unimpressed. Jack Schlossberg, former President John F. Kennedy’s grandson, made his stance on the order clear in a post on X, saying that there was ‘nothing heroic’ about Trump’s latest move.
‘Declassification is using JFK as a political prop, when he’s not here to punch back,’ Schlossberg wrote. ‘There’s nothing heroic about it.’
After signing the order, which included the declassification of files on the assassinations of JFK, his brother Robert F. Kennedy and civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr., Trump told reporters that ‘everything will be revealed.’
RFK Jr., son of the late senator and Trump’s HHS nominee, told press that the order was a ‘great move’ on the president’s part. He believes that the move will bring ‘more transparency’ and it shows that Trump is ‘keeping his promise to have the government tell the truth to the American people about everything.’ Kennedy has called for answers on his father and uncle’s assassinations.
‘I have now determined that the continued redaction and withholding of information from records pertaining to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy is not consistent with the public interest and the release of these records is long overdue,’ Trump’s order reads.
The order gives officials just over two weeks (15 days) to give Trump a plan for ‘the full and complete release of records’ on the JFK assassination. Additionally, officials have 45 days to present a plan on files relating to RFK and MLK Jr.’s assassinations.
King’s family reacted to the order in a statement, saying that they ‘hope to be provided the opportunity to review the files as a family prior to its public release.’
While Trump promised to release the JFK files during his first administration, there is still an undisclosed amount of material that remains under wraps more than 60 years later.
Trump ultimately agreed to block the release of the files after pleas from the CIA and FBI. At the time, he said that the threat of making the documents public were of ‘significant gravity’ that they outweighed ‘public interest.’ In a recent appearance on ‘Hannity,’ Trump said that then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo asked him not to release the documents, though he did not say if Pompeo explained why the files should remain classified.
Fox News Digital’s Louis Casiano contributed to this report.