
US President Donald Trump on Thursday signed an executive order to declassify government records concerning the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., CNBC reported.
The move has the potential to address lingering questions surrounding the killings, which all occurred more than 50 years ago. Official investigations concluded that the three assassinations were carried out by lone gunmen, but those findings have long been challenged by conspiracy theories, partly fueled by the government’s continued classification of some records related to the cases.
“That’s a big one,” Trump said in the Oval Office as he signed the order. “A lot of people are waiting for this for a long, long time, for years, for decades, and everything will be revealed.”
The order directs the director of national intelligence and the attorney general to collaborate with the national security adviser and Trump’s legal counsel to develop a plan within 15 days for the “full and complete release of records relating to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.”
It also calls for a similar review of records related to the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr., with plans for their complete release.
The executive order notes, “More than 50 years after the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, and the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the Federal Government has not released to the public all of its records related to those events.”
It emphasizes the importance of transparency, stating, “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.”
The release of Kennedy-related records has been an ongoing issue. The President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992 mandated that all records related to the assassination be disclosed by October 26, 2017, unless the president certified that withholding certain information was necessary to prevent identifiable harm to national security, intelligence, law enforcement, or foreign relations.
During his first presidency, Trump allowed delays in full disclosure in 2017 and 2018, a practice continued by his successor, President Joe Biden.
In 2017, after the National Archives and Records Administration released 2,891 documents on the JFK assassination, Trump vowed he would release all documents related to the assassination. In a Fox News interview on Wednesday, Trump stated that then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, a former CIA director, had urged him not to declassify some remaining Kennedy-related records.
In Thursday’s order, Trump declared, “I have now determined that the continued redaction and withholding of information from records pertaining to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy is not consistent with the public interest and the release of these records is long overdue.” He also extended this principle to records concerning the killings of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr., stating, “I have determined that the release of all records in the Federal Government’s possession pertaining to each of those assassinations is also in the public interest.”
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has been nominated by Trump as secretary of the US Health and Human Services Department, expressed his gratitude for the decision.
Speaking to NBC News, Kennedy Jr. said, “I’m very grateful to President Trump. I think it’s a great move, because they need to have more transparency in our government, and he’s keeping his promise to have the government tell the truth to the American people about everything.”