Trump to Rogan: If Elected, I'll Open Remaining JFK Files 'Immediately'

Former president says 'good people' advised him not to release all the documents in 2017

Donald Trump, former president and current presidential candidate, said in an interview with Joe Rogan that dropped this weekend that judging from what he saw while in office, releasing the government’s remaining JFK assassination files would be “just fine” and he would do so “immediately” if reelected.

In the wide-ranging, three-hour sit-down, Rogan began his JFK line of inquiry by quoting something Judge Andrew Napolitano said Trump told him when he asked the then-president why he didn’t release all of the JFK files: “If they showed you what they showed me, you wouldn’t have released them either… .”

Trump did not repeat, or even speak directly to that quote, replying instead that “a lot of good people” — including then-CIA Director Mike Pompeo — had asked him to refrain from releasing all the files.

“But if I win I’m just going to open them up,” Trump added.

In 2017, Trump, who was statutorily obligated by the JFK Records Act of 1992 to release the government’s remaining JFK assassination-related files, authorized the release of thousands of documents, while still leaving many redacted or withheld in full.

The Biden administration went on to release more — but far from all — remaining documents, before agreeing to a process wherein the CIA and National Security Agency would decide what remaining files — if any — could be released to the public. That move is currently being challenged in court by the Mary Ferrell Foundation.

Rogan pushed Trump about why he didn’t release them all when he had the power to do so. What was the hesitation?

Trump said the files revealed addresses, and the names of people who are still living — “there are people that are affected.”

“And there could be some national security question, you know, that I don’t necessarily have to know about. But some very good, talented people asked me not to do it,” Trump went on to say.

When Rogan asked him how much of the JFK documentation he had read, Trump hesitated before responding:

“I think it’s going to be just fine to open it, let me put it that way … it’s a cleansing you know, it’s really a cleansing. … So I’m going to do it immediately, almost immediately, upon entering office.”

Rogan suggested that when the documents remain withheld, it allows for speculation that living people are implicated in them. Trump reiterated vaguely that the files held the names of “living people that were somehow involved in it” and that “it’s time to open them.”

“I can’t tell you whether or not they’re going to find anything of interest,” Trump concluded, before changing the subject to unidentified flying objects.