The Trump administration on Monday released hundreds of thousands of records related to the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr, despite objections from the civil rights leader’s family.
Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, stated: “The American public has waited nearly sixty years to view the full extent of the federal investigation into Dr King’s assassination. We’re committed to complete transparency and will leave no stone unturned in uncovering the truth about this pivotal and tragic chapter in our history.”
Gabbard confirmed the release of over 230,000 pages of documents, noting that they include only minimal redactions for privacy reasons.
President Donald Trump had signed an executive order declassifying files connected to the 1960s assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, his brother Robert F. Kennedy, and Dr King.
The National Archives previously released records on President Kennedy’s November 1963 assassination in March, and on Robert Kennedy’s June 1968 murder in April.
Dr King was assassinated in April 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee. James Earl Ray was convicted of the killing and later died in prison in 1998. However, King’s children have long questioned Ray’s guilt.
In a joint statement on Monday, Dr King’s surviving children, Martin Luther King III and Bernice King, supported the move towards transparency and historical accountability, but voiced concern that the documents could be misused to undermine their father’s legacy.
They noted that during his lifetime, Dr King was subjected to an “invasive, predatory, and deeply disturbing disinformation and surveillance campaign” led by then FBI director J. Edgar Hoover.
According to them, the FBI’s objective was to “discredit, dismantle, and destroy Dr King’s reputation and the broader American Civil Rights Movement.” They described these actions as deliberate assaults on truth and personal privacy.
“We urge everyone engaging with these files to do so with empathy, restraint, and respect for our family’s ongoing grief,” they said.
The Warren Commission, which investigated John F. Kennedy’s assassination, concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald, a former Marine sharpshooter, acted alone. Nonetheless, speculation about a broader conspiracy has persisted, and the delayed release of related documents has fuelled various theories.
Robert Kennedy, the late president’s younger brother and a former attorney general, was assassinated while campaigning for the Democratic nomination. Sirhan Sirhan, a Palestinian-born Jordanian, was convicted of his murder and remains imprisoned in California.