In compliance with President Donald Trump’s executive order issued on January 23, the CIA released nearly 1,500 pages of previously classified documents relating to New York Sen. Robert F. Kennedy and his 1968 assassination today.
“Today’s release delivers on President Trump’s commitment to maximum transparency, enabling the CIA to shine light on information that serves the public interest,” CIA Director John Ratcliffe stated in a press release.
“I am proud to share our work on this incredibly important topic with the American people.”
CIA's release of 54 declassified documents related to Sen. Robert F. Kennedy's assassination "delivers on President Trump's commitment to maximum transparency, enabling the CIA to shine light on information that is in the public interest." –@DCIARatcliffehttps://t.co/IAhPWICVB3 pic.twitter.com/Zn7DCrvzjM
— CIA (@CIA) June 12, 2025
The newly-released files confirm no evidence of a wider conspiracy.
However, they do shed new light on his killer.
Sirhan Sirhan, the Palestinian-born Jordanian citizen was convicted of Kennedy’s murder after the June 5, 1968, shooting in Los Angeles.
The new files contain a psychological profile of the gunman as well as his handwritten notes.
A July 8 personality assessment by the feds declared that “under no circumstances would we have predicted that [Sirhan] was ‘capable’ of doing what he did.”
“Obviously, we cannot see him as part of a conspiracy,” the assessment also states. “He could be a tool of a conspiracy in the sense that the attempted assassin of Secretary of State [William] Seward and the assigned assassin of Vice President Andrew Johnson (George Atzerodt) were tools of the [John Wilkes] Booth conspiracy.”
“It is very unlikely however that he could have effectively acted under precise instructions,” it goes on. “Essentially, we see Sirhan as being much more like the impulsive assassins of [James] Garfield and [William] McKinley than the calculating assassins of Lincoln and President [John F. ] Kennedy.”
“Kennedy must fall Kennedy must fall. Please pay to the order of Sirhan Sirhan,” reads a note that appears to predate Sirhan’s other private journal entries from May 19, 1968, which were previously published by The Washington Post.
“We believe that Robert F. Kennedy must be sacrificed for the cause of the poor exploited people,” another note proclaims, adding that the then-presidential candidate would “eventually be felled … by an assassin’s bullet … tonight tonight tonight.”
According to previous reports, a June 12, 1968, psychological profile of Sirhan Sirhan had described him as having “high intellectual potential,” and being “quite intuitive,” with a belief that “communism may appear as an ideal solution.”
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and RFK’s son had previously claimed he’s unconvinced that Sirhan, now 81, fired the bullet that killed his father — even meeting with the convicted assassin in a California prison in 2018.
“I got to a place where I had to see Sirhan,’’ the younger Kennedy told the Washington Post in an interview at the time.
“I went [to the prison] because I was curious and disturbed by what I had seen in the evidence.”
However, officials say that new information on Sirhan covers his family history and international ties and notes that the gunman was never connected to any terrorist groups.
Today, RFK, Jr. said he was happy to see the files released.
“Lifting the veil on the RFK papers is a necessary step toward restoring trust in American government,” he stated in a release.
“I commend President Trump for his courage and his commitment to transparency. I’m grateful also to Tulsi Gabbard and John Ratcliffe for their dogged efforts to root out and declassify these documents.”