No, Donald Trump didn’t order Dallas police to prepare to arrest a JFK assassination suspect

President-elect Donald Trump didn’t order the Dallas Police Department and the "Dallas Attorney General’s Office" — something that doesn’t exist — to prepare to arrest a suspect in former President John F. Kennedy’s 1963 assassination in the city. 

But a fabricated Nov. 26 statement from Trump appeared to show him saying as much. 

"On behalf of incumbent President Donald J. Trump and Robert F. Kennedy we are hereby ordering the Dallas Police Department and the Dallas Attorney General’s Office to begin preparation for the arrest and prosecution of Ruth Paine (9-3-1932) for Conspiracy to Commit the Murder of President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963," the statement said.

A Nov. 27 Threads post sharing it was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and Threads.)

Paine shared a home in Irving, Texas, with the wife of Lee Harvey Oswald, who was arrested in Kennedy’s assassination. Oswald was later assassinated by nightclub owner Jack Ruby.  

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s nominee to run the Department of Health and Human Services, is John F. Kennedy’s nephew. 

In August, Kennedy said on X that Trump told him "he will release the files on the JFK assassination." 

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Threads posts

stated on November 5, 2024 in a Threads post

Says U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin said, “Let folks cast their votes for Trump if that’s their choice. But mark my words, we won’t be certifying the election. He might win, but we’ll ensure he doesn’t step foot in the Oval Office.”

Another X account responded to Kennedy’s post Nov. 27 by sharing the purported Trump statement. 

"Hold on to your butts!" the account said. 

Several hours later, the account posted again: "Disclaimer: This is a FAKE DOC!! The above document is not real.. I made it as a social experiment to see how people would respond on X."

The account reiterated this the next day. 

"It’s a fake document," the post said in response to a question about where it was posted. "It was posted here, by me, after I took 5 minutes to type it up in Word. I wanted to show you how easy it was for fake news to spread."

The statement also doesn’t appear on Trump’s Truth Social account, where he shared six other Nov. 26 statements with the same "Trump Vance transition" header that appears in the fabricated statement. Each of the six authentic statements announced a cabinet nomination or appointment in the incoming Trump administration. 

We rate claims that a statement by Trump about an arrest in John F. Kennedy’s assassination is authentic False.