President Donald Trump Saturday tweeted he'll allow, as president, the long-blocked government documents about the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy to be released, "subject to the receipt of further information."
According to the 1992 Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act, inspired in part by Oliver Stone's movie "JFK," the final pages of the records must be released by Oct. 26, unless the sitting president rules otherwise, The Washington Post reported Saturday.
However, a National Security Council official told The Post that federal agencies have asked Trump not to release several of the files, which are still being held by the National Archives and Records Administration.
"There will be a request made to the President to withhold documents, absolutely no question about that," said the NSC official, speaking under the condition of anonymity. "There are definitely files related to sources and methods that agencies are asking to withhold."
Trump spokeswoman Lindsay Walters this week, in a statement, said the White House is "aware of the upcoming deadline" and is working with federal agencies to be sure that the "maximum amount of data can be released to the public" without "identifiable harm" to national security operations.
Rep. Walter B. Jones,R-N.C., and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Rep. Walter Jones, R-North Carolina, earlier this month presented resolutions asking Trump to "reject any claims for the continued postponement" of the records.
According to experts, 3,100 unreleased files, containing tens of thousands of pages of material that has not been publicly seen, remain to be released. The National Archives has another 30,000 pages that were only partially released in the past.
The 3,100 new files concern Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald's six-day trip to Mexico City two months before the Nov. 22, 1963 murder, the experts said. It's believed the papers also show how the CIA was monitoring Oswald in Mexico and knew about his contacts with Cuba and the then-Soviet Union.
On Friday, author Philip Shenon, who wrote a book about the Warren Commission, said in a Politico article that Trump is "almost certain to block the release of information from some" of the Kennedy files, citing interviews with Trump administration officials.
In his Saturday morning tweet, Trump appeared to leave open the chance that some of the documents would be withheld, notes CNN.