A little over 59 years ago, President John F. Kennedy was shot in a motorcade in Dallas, Texas. Records about the incident were classified until this month.
NBC News reported that more than 7 in in 10 voters want President Biden to release the classified documents that were originally set to be released Oct. 2021.
What the poll found about the JFK assassination documents
Axios reported that 71% of voters want the assassination records released and that only 10% of voters want the release of the records to be delayed.
The poll found that Republicans were more supportive than Democrats in the release of the records, the majority of voters said they thought there were more people than Lee Harvey Oswald involved in JFK’s death and most young people between ages 18-29 were the highest percentage in support of the record’s release.
The poll was conducted from Nov. 14 to Nov. 22 this year by Fernand Amandi, a Democratic pollster and JFK assassination history expert according to the Washington Examiner.
Why were the documents delayed?
Politico reported that documents related to the assassination were still not available to the public due to President Biden ordering another review of the documents in Oct. 2021.
This review set the document release back to Dec. 2022.
The Guardian reported that the Biden administration was sued over the decision to delay the release of the records regarding the assassination of JFK.
The original deadline for the government to release all the records was Oct. 27, 2017, according to the President John F Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act, but President Donald Trump pushed the records to be released in 2021 due to national security concerns.
Why people want the records released
The Mary Ferrell Foundation group, the group that sued the Biden administration, wrote on its website, “These failures have resulted in confusion, gaps in the records, over-classification, and outright denial of thousands of assassination-related files, five years after the law’s deadline for full disclosure.”
Axios reported that about 16,000 documents about the assassination have not been given to the public and that “experts say, those documents contain the most sensitive material about the 35th president’s shocking assassination.”
“It was a momentous crime, a crime against American democracy. And the American people have the right to know,” Robert Kennedy Jr., son of JFK’s brother Robert Kennedy, said, per NBC News. “The law requires the records be released. It’s bizarre. It’s been almost 60 years since my uncle’s death. What are they hiding?”
Politico reported that many conspiracy theorists and people interested in the assassination are feeling justified in their opinions and research about the incident as the documents surrounding it are still classified.