Bombshell new documents related to the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy in 1968 will be released “within the next few days,” Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard announced Thursday during a Cabinet meeting with President Donald Trump.
“I’ve had over 100 people working around the clock to scan the paper,” Gabbard told Trump. “These have been sitting in boxes in storage for decades — they have never been scanned or seen before.”
The imminent release of the previously classified documents stems from an executive order Trump signed in the first week of his administration, directing the release of files on the assassinations of both men, as well as other high-profile cases including President John F. Kennedy’s 1963 assassination and documents related to Jeffrey Epstein.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who was a teenager when his father was killed, expressed support for the document release during the Cabinet meeting.
“I’m very gratified,” Kennedy said when Trump asked for his reaction. He later added he was “very grateful” for the initiative.
Trump instructed Gabbard to let Kennedy preview some of the documents, saying, “You let Bobby see some of this because, you know, it’s very personal stuff. But it’s time.” Gabbard responded that Kennedy had told her “the world needs to know the truth.”
While the Kennedy family appears supportive, the King family is attempting to block the immediate release of some files related to MLK’s death, particularly FBI surveillance recordings.
In a court filing submitted last week, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), the civil rights group founded and run by King, argued that a 1977 court order requiring certain documents to be sealed for 50 years should remain in place, keeping them from public view until January 2027.
Both of Dr. King’s living children, Martin Luther King III and Bernice King, submitted written declarations opposing the release.
“We respectfully disagree that the public release of the sealed records is a benefit for our family,” King III wrote. “We also disagree that our family and the general public stand on equal footing with respect to illicit recordings made of our family home. Private spaces by definition exclude the public; our family’s privacy deserves the same protection and respect as any other family in America.”
The SCLC and King family specifically want FBI wiretap recordings and transcripts to remain sealed. These recordings were part of the FBI’s counterintelligence program known as COINTELPRO, which targeted King for years.
King’s son expressed concern that the recordings may contain fabricated information, writing, “Some, perhaps many, of the recordings may be fake. The FBI’s purpose in creating the documents the government seeks to unseal was to misinform the public and irreparably damage our father’s reputation and most importantly destroy the civil rights movement.”
Bernice King echoed these concerns, stating the release would cause “irreparable harm” to her father’s legacy “due to the history of fabricated assertions and disinformation” from the FBI.
Despite these objections, the government appears to be moving forward with its plan for imminent release. Gabbard said her team has “hunters” looking in storage lockers at the FBI, CIA and other agencies to ensure all relevant documents are included.
“We’re actively going out and trying to search out the truth,” she said.
The National Archives released more than 2,000 pages of documents last month on President Kennedy’s assassination, though experts noted many of the pages were already public. Some Epstein files were released in February, but critics claimed the White House was still withholding information.
Senator Kennedy was shot and killed after a campaign event in California on June 5, 1968, shortly after winning the California Democratic presidential primary. Dr. King was assassinated on April 4, 1968, as he stood on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. He was 39 years old.
In 1977, a Justice Department task force investigating the FBI’s surveillance of King concluded that James Earl Ray acted alone in killing King, but found that the FBI’s actions involving COINTELPRO’s efforts to undermine King were possibly illegal.