
On Thursday (Jan. 23), President Donald Trump signed an executive order mandating the release of files tied to the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. “That’s a big one. Lot of people are waiting for this ... for years, for decades,” he noted from the Oval Office. “Everything will be revealed.” An official White House press release added, “Their families and the American people deserve transparency and truth. It is in the national interest to finally release all records related to these assassinations without delay.”
Since the reveal, MLK’s family acknowledged Trump’s latest move in an official statement on social media. “Today, our family has learned that President Trump has ordered the declassification of the remaining records pertaining to the assassinations,” read a message shared by Dr. Bernice King, the youngest child of the late civil rights icon. “For us, the assassination of our father is a deeply personal family loss that we have endured over the last 56 years. We hope to be provided the opportunity to review the files as a family prior to its public release.” The statement closed by shutting down any interview requests “as they await further information.”
Notably, the records in question did not become immediately available following the president’s signature. Regarding JFK, “the director of national intelligence and the attorney general shall, in coordination with the assistant to the president for national security affairs and the counsel to the president, present a plan to the president for the full and complete release of records ... within 15 days of the date of this order.”
As CNN confirmed, virtually all of the information on the former head of state’s murder is publicly available – 13,000 of those documents were released during Joe Biden’s term. A separate timeline was established for the RFK and MLK files, which are expected to be made public within 45 days.