Trump says he will release 80,000 pages of JFK files on Tuesday

United States President Donald Trump has said his administration will on Tuesday release approximately 80,000 pages of files about the assassination of John F Kennedy, whose killing has fuelled conspiracy theories for more than six decades.

Speaking at the Kennedy Center on Monday, Trump said the release will contain “a lot of reading” about the assassination of the 35th US president, who was killed in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963.

“I don’t believe we are going to redact anything. I said, ‘just don’t redact, you can’t redact’,” Trump told reporters. “But we are going to be releasing the JFK files.”

Asked if he had seen what was in the files, Trump said he was aware of their contents.

“It’s going to be very interesting,” he said.

Trump’s remarks follow a January executive order calling for the release of all remaining records on the JFK assassination, as well as files related to the assassinations of Robert F Kennedy and the civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr.

Under the order, Trump instructed the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, to present a plan within 15 days for the “full and complete release” of files on the JFK assassination.

Last month, the FBI said that searches it had undertaken to comply with the order had turned up about 2,400 new files related to the assassination.

The circumstances of JFK’s death have captivated US society for decades, with surveys showing a majority of Americans doubt official explanations of the case.