During a tour of the Kennedy Center on Monday, President Trump announced that he would release new and unredacted documents related to John F. Kennedy’s assassination.
“We are tomorrow announcing and giving all of the Kennedy files…I don’t believe we…are going to redact anything…it’s going to be very interesting…approximately 80,000 pages,” Trump said.
Prediction market traders have been optimistic about Trump fulfilling his campaign promise to release new JFK files since the day before he took office. On Inauguration Day, CFTC-regulated prediction market Kalshi gave Trump a 90% chance of releasing new JFK files in 2025.
Throughout March, the odds of a 2025 release fell from 93% to 83% but market sentiment still showed new files were more likely to be released than not.
The odds in the Epstein files market are far less optimistic.
Are Epstein files on deck?
On Feb. 27, Attorney General Pam Bondi announced the release of the “first phase” of the Epstein files. The files she released had already been leaked to the public, so they did not satisfy Kalshi’s requirement for previously unseen documents.
The odds of an Epstein release in Trump’s first 100 days have since fallen from a high of 96% to about 43% in mid-March. Trump’s administration has until April 30 to release previously unseen Epstein documents for this market to resolve to Yes.
The JFK file release didn’t increase trader confidence in a timely Epstein file release. Despite the interest in details like Epstein’s “client list,” the Trump administration has been slow to release new files since phase one.
Bondi claimed that the delayed release was the FBI’s fault and that she had been misled into thinking she had all the documents related to Epstein’s sex trafficking case in February. She has said new documents are on the way but has offered no details about when a second trove of documents could be released.
