Trump signs order to declassify files on JFK, MLK assassinations

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US President Donald Trump on Thursday signed an executive order destroying files related to the assassinations of former presidents John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King Jr.

“It’s huge, a lot of people have been waiting for it for years,” Trump told reporters as he signed the order in the Oval Office of the White House.

“All will be revealed.”

After signing the order, Trump passed the pen he used to an aide, saying “Give it to RFK Jr.,” JFK’s nephew and the current presidential nominee for the Department of Health and Human Services. To become Secretary of Human Services.

The order Trump signed requires the “full and complete release” of JFK’s files, without the repercussions he accepted in 2017 when he released most of the documents.

“It is in the national interest to finally release all records relating to these killings without further delay,” the order said.

Trump has previously promised to release the final files, most recently on the eve of his inauguration on Monday.

‘Overwhelming Evidence’

The U.S. National Archives has released tens of thousands of records related to the Nov. 22, 1963, assassination of President Kennedy in recent years, but has withheld thousands, citing national security concerns.

It said at the time of its mass release in December 2022 that 97% of the Kennedy records—totaling five million pages—have now been made public.

The Warren Commission that investigated the shooting of the charismatic 46-year-old president has determined that Lee Harvey Oswald, a former Marine sharpshooter, acted alone.

But the official conclusion has done little to quell speculation that another sinister plot was behind Kennedy’s assassination in Dallas, Texas, and the slow release of official files has added fuel to various conspiracy theories. .

Trump’s move is partly a nod to one of the most prominent supporters of these conspiracies — Robert F. Kennedy Jr. himself.

RFK Jr. said there was “overwhelming evidence of CIA involvement” in the 2023 assassination of his uncle JFK and “very convincing” evidence that the agency was also involved in the 1968 assassination of his father, Robert. F was behind Kennedy’s assassination.

The former attorney general was killed while campaigning for the Democratic nomination for president. A Jordanian Palestinian of Palestinian descent was convicted of his murder.

Anti-vaccine activist RFK Jr. was rewarded with a health nod to Trump’s cabinet for abandoning his independent presidential bid and backing a Republican, but he faced a rocky nomination process.

Conspiracy theories

Thousands of Kennedy assassination documents from the National Archives were released during Trump’s first term in office, but he also returned some on national security grounds.

President Joe Biden then said at the time of the December 2022 release of the documents that the agency would continue to return a “limited” number of files “at the request of agencies.”

Previous requests to withhold documents have come from the CIA and FBI.

Kennedy scholars have said that the documents still held by the archives contain little to no revelations or are likely to put to rest wild conspiracy theories about the assassination of the 35th US president.

Oswald, who at one point was obsessed with the Soviet Union, was shot and killed by nightclub owner Jack Ruby two days after Kennedy was killed, as he was being transferred from the city jail.

Hundreds of books and movies have fueled the conspiracy industry, including the 1991 Oliver Stone film “JFK,” which has pointed the finger at Cold War rivals Russia or Cuba, the Mafia and even Kennedy’s vice president, Lyndon Johnson. He pointed out.

Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee in April 1968.

James Earl Ray was convicted of the murder and died in prison in 1998, but King’s children have in the past expressed doubts that Ray was the killer.