JFK assassination files: Sixty-one years after the assassination of US president John F. Kennedy, the FBI has 'discovered' 2,400 previously concealed records relating to the former president's killing, suggest reports.

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This revelation follows US President Donald Trump's order demanding the release of all JFK assassination records. 

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Citing sources in the know, Axios reports that these thousands of pages worth of records were never shared with the board tasked with reviewing and disclosing the JFK assassination files.

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Closely held secrets

As per the report, the existence of these clandestine records was disclosed to the White House on Friday (Feb 7) as Lora Shiao, the Director of National Intelligence, submitted the agency's plan to disclose the assassination records.

The discovery of these documents is likely to raise questions on how information on the closely scrutinised event in US history managed to stay a secret for over six decades.

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'This is huge'

Applauding the revelation, Jefferson Morley, an expert on the assassination and vice president of the nonpartisan Mary Ferrell Foundation, the nation's largest source of online records of Kennedy's killing, said: "This is huge".

"The FBI is finally saying, 'Let's respond to the president's order,' instead of keeping the secrecy going," he added.

Why does this matter?

The remaining records, whose content is still not disclosed, can potentially shed light on whether JFK assassin Lee Harvey Oswald was a lone wolf or part of a broader conspiracy, say experts.

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Additionally, these records could have relevance in a 2022 lawsuit alleging that federal agencies had more documents relating to the assassination that were kept hidden from the national archives. The lawsuit filed by the Mary Ferrell Foundation against the Biden administration in 2022 alleges that the documents include Jailhouse recordings of mobster Carlos Marcello, who claimed he was involved in the assassination, among other things.  

(With inputs from agencies)