At first glance when you read anything about a President “disclosing” secret material from some vault deep withing the bowels of the government, the next line should really have something to do with Roswell. But in this situation it’s a different, but almost as compelling conspiracy theory. Yep… we’re talking about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

The CIA is sitting on a pile of documents relating to the assassination which were nearly brought out for public inspection a quarter century ago, but a judge ruled that they could stay under wraps… until now. The choice will apparently be left up to the President and we have no idea which way he’ll decide. (Associated Press)

The anticipated release of thousands of never-before-seen government documents related to President John F. Kennedy’s assassination has scholars and armchair detectives buzzing. Now, they’re waiting to see whether President Donald Trump will block the release of files that could shed light on a tragedy that has stirred conspiracy theories for decades.

The National Archives has until Oct. 26 to disclose the remaining files related to Kennedy’s 1963 assassination, unless Trump intervenes. The CIA and FBI, whose records make up the bulk of the batch, won’t say whether they’ve appealed to the Republican president to keep them under wraps.

“The American public deserves to know the facts, or at least they deserve to know what the government has kept hidden from them for all these years,” Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics and author of a book about Kennedy, said in an email to The Associated Press. “It’s long past the time to be forthcoming with this information,” he said.

So what’s in this pile of goodies? Is it proof once and for all that LBJ was involved? Is it orders from inside the CIA to do the deed themselves? Or maybe a receipt for some hush money paid to the mafia to take him out? That is, I mean… if there actually were a mafia. Which obviously there isn’t. All the Italians I know are decent, honest, hard working people who have historically been unfairly defamed. (Er… we cool now, guys?)

The general consensus seems to be that it’s nothing like that. The government couldn’t have put out anything close to the Warren Commission Report if there were known documents which could blow the lid off one of the above conspiracy theories which would have to be made public some day. Insiders claim that at least some of the material has to do with what the CIA knew about Lee Harvey Oswald’s trip to Mexico City shortly before the assassination and any ties to the Russians or the Cubans. That could prove interesting, but not incendiary.

These sorts of secrets tend to remain buried until all the actors involved are dead. That seems grossly unfair to the public, but that’s the government for you. Still, I find it hard to believe that solid evidence of anything definitively implicating the United States government in Kennedy’s killing could be in there. Even if you fancy some of those conspiracy theories as being possible, any documentation proving such allegations would surely have “disappeared” long, long ago.

The only real question is whether President Trump will continue to block their release or if he’ll let them all be revealed. My money is on the latter. It will create another media circus with Trump as the ringmaster and you know he has a hard time turning down an opportunity like that.