March 19, 2025 / 10:19 PM CDT / CBS Texas

The government has released thousands of newly unredacted JFK assassination files for public view. Now, as the dust has settled, CBS News Texas sits down with one of the nation’s leading JFK experts to answer your questions about what these documents really mean and whether they were worth all the anticipation.

“There’s no definitive smoking gun,” said Farris Rookstool III, who has dedicated his career to studying everything there is to know about the JFK assassination by Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas on November 22, 1963.

As a former FBI analyst, Rookstool served as the agency’s primary resource for the JFK Task Force, reviewing nearly all 6 million classified documents related to the investigation. 

“There’s there is not another person in the US government today or past that is like me,” Rookstool said.

On Tuesday, the US government released the bulk of the 80,000 remaining un-redacted JFK files now posted on the National Archives website. The move comes after promises made by the Trump administration to release the final batch of documents in full for the public. 

Rookstool took CBS News Texas through some of them, highlighting handwritten letters as well as CIA files about Lee Harvey Oswald’s foreign travels weeks before the assassination.

“That’s the interesting thing. The CIA knew about this unstable, erratic, young guy, 24-year-old named Lee,” Rookstool explains, “But the challenge was, they weren’t sharing their information with the FBI.”

Rookstool said the documents prove that there was an intelligence failure.

“It also shows the bureaucratic missteps,” he said. “Additionally, it shows the complexity surrounding the case. There’s a lot of missteps that we can learn from this.”

Rookstool said these documents do not change the conclusion that Oswald was JFK’s sole killer but admits this is one of the most significant JFK file releases to date. He said, despite the documents, this chapter of history is far from closed for many Americans. 

“There’s not a bombshell,” said Rookstool. “There’s nothing in any of these records. That’s why people will never be satisfied and will come up with their own theories.”

Rookstool hopes this release inspires many to pick up the paper, or click the links, and learn what they can about, what he claims, is the most extensive investigation by law enforcement in history. 

“That’s where we must look at this and realize this still has, after 62 years, a lasting impact and will for generations to come on every American’s life,” Rookstool said. “It is something that was monumental and it was something that changed the course of history.”

It’s important to note, some of the documents were public before, but the only difference is now they have little to no redaction. Also, not all 80,000 pages are online yet. We’re told only a little over 63,000 files are online as of Wednesday night and some will only be able to be read in person at the National Archives in Maryland.