Ex-judge says Trump hinted at JFK conspiracy: 'You wouldn’t have released it either'

15 March 2024

During a recent podcast segment, former New Jersey Superior Court Judge Andrew Napolitano suggested former President Donald Trump may have inside knowledge relating to one of the most contentious conspiracy theories in history — the murder of former President John F. Kennedy.

Napolitano made the comment to Columbia University professor Jeffrey Sachs during an episode of his Judging Freedom Podcast. The retired judge said Trump called him occasionally, and spoke about one particular conversation that took place after the January 6 insurrection. After the lame-duck president grumbled about losing the 2020 election, Napolitano said he confronted Trump about his failure to release all of the government's remaining JFK assassination documents.

"I said, you know you made a promise to the public many times — and to me privately — that you haven't kept. 'What, what? I'll take care of it right now.' I said, 'you promised you would release the records of the JFK assassination.' He said to me, 'Judge, if they showed you what they showed me, you wouldn't have released it either,'" Napolitano recalled. "And I said, 'who's they? What did they show you?' And then he said, 'Judge, someday when we're on the phone, and then he raised his voice, and there aren't 15 people listening to the phone call — back to a normal voice — I'll tell you.'"

"I mean this makes it sound even worse," he added. "Who are 'they?' Probably somebody in the intelligence community. What did they show him? JFK's brains blown out?"

The former president announced after taking office that he would be releasing new JFK documents as part of the JFK Records Act — a 1992 law requiring their full disclosure. However, the Associated Press reported in 2018 that he had quietly reneged on that promise of "great transparency," saying Americans would have to wait at least three more years in order to see the remaining documents still in question. He cited "identifiable national security, law enforcement, and foreign affairs concerns" as reasons to keep them secret.

That release may have already happened. In 2022, President Joe Biden's administration released a trove of roughly 7,000 new JFK documents. Then in 2023, more than 2,000 additional documents were published online. According to the Intercept's Ryan Grim, some of those documents explained alleged lone Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald's connections to the CIA, and others mentioned Oswald's associate, George de Mohrenschildt. But Grim noted that the CIA has still heavily redacted approximately 4,000 additional documents.

"They really, really don’t want to fully disclose around JFK. And what is the average person supposed to think of that?" Grim said on the Intercept's Deconstructed podcast. "I mean, if you keep hiding something, you gotta believe they have something to hide. I mean, that’s the common-sense reaction."

JFK's nephew, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is running for president in 2024 as an independent, called on Biden to release all remaining documents on the 60th anniversary of his uncle's murder.

"What is so embarrassing that they’re afraid to show the American public 60 years later?" RFK Jr. said.

Watch the video of Napolitano's remarks below, or by clicking this link.

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