The Trump administration has publicly released thousands of documents relating to the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. despite objections from the King family over publicizing the information. The move to declassify the documents fulfills a campaign promise made by Trump to release information relating to the assassinations of King and President John F. Kennedy. The timing of the release, however, seems suspicious to many who accuse it of being a distraction from the lack of transparency concerning documents in the Jeffrey Epstein case.
Thousands of documents but few major revelations
The New York Times reported that the National Archives published over 6,000 documents relating to the King assassination on its website Monday night. The documents amount to at least 230,000 pages of material, though King experts have so far concluded that the newly declassified material does not contain any major revelations about the King case. Although King was famously placed under extensive surveillance by the FBI during his life, recordings from those wiretaps were not included in Monday’s release; that information is set to remain classified until 2027. The newly released information did include one audio recording featuring excerpts from a law enforcement interview with Jerry Ray, a brother of King assassin James Earl Ray.
King family asks for understanding, ‘context’ concerning files
Monday’s declassification of the documents was done despite the King family objecting to the release of the information, which has been under seal since the FBI handed the files to the National Archives and Records Administration in 1977. Although the information was released without prior announcement to the public, the King family was given advance notice, and it reviewed the material prior to the release. King’s surviving children, 67-year-old Martin Luther King III and 62-year-old Bernice King, acknowledged in a statement that their father’s death has been “captivating public curiosity for decades” even as it remains “an intense personal grief” to them. “These files must be viewed within their full historical context,” they urged. In previous years, releases of information connected to the FBI’s surveillance of King have included sensational accusations, including alleged ties to the Communist Party USA or accusations of sexual impropriety. The King family and historians have either disputed these allegations or sought to place them in context to avoid letting them tarnish the legacy of the civil rights icon. In the context of the communist allegations, for example, a well-known King expert warned about these types of allegations. “Just because you see it in a top-secret document, just because someone had said it to the FBI, doesn’t mean it’s all accurate,” Pulitzer Prize-winning author and historian David Garrow said, according to The Washington Post.
Possible attempt by Trump administration to distract from the Epstein scandal
The release of the files fulfills a campaign promise for Trump, who pledged to release information related to the assassinations of King and Kennedy. The lack of groundbreaking new information in Monday’s release is similar to the non-revelatory nature of the March release of files related to the assassination of Kennedy. Furthermore, the timing of Monday’s release has been met with skepticism, with many saying that this and other recent moves by the Trump administration have been attempts to distract from the growing scandal over the administration’s refusal to release information about the Epstein sex trafficking case despite Trump coming under scrutiny for his past friendship with the deceased convicted sex offender. Even Bernice King joined the criticism, tweeting a famous picture of her father giving a skeptical look alongside the caption “Now, do the Epstein files.”
As experts comb through the newly released King files, it seems possible but unlikely that they will reveal much about the civil rights leader’s life or his murder. The King files have also not stopped members of the public from demanding more information about Epstein, even as the Trump administration appears to be attempting to turn the public’s attention toward other matters.
