Trump administration releases documents on Martin Luther King Jr
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Reverend Martin Luther King Jr's family has expressed concerns that releasing the records into him would focus attention on his well-documented sexual indiscretions.
PHOTO: GEORGE TAMES/NYTIMES
Glenn Thrush, Rick Rojas
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WASHINGTON – The Trump administration on July 21 made public a vast trove of documents from the investigation into the assassination of the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr
The release of the documents, about a quarter-million pages of records posted on the National Archives website, includes notes on the leads pursued by investigators, interviews with people who interacted with assassin James Earl Ray and previously unreleased details of interactions with foreign intelligence services during the search for Ray, said Ms Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, who oversaw review of the documents.
It is not clear if the digitised files contain unflattering details about Dr King’s personal life.
Still, the release comes as Mr Trump and his staff have sought to divert attention from the backlash on the right after his administration reversed course and did not release more files from the investigation into the death of disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein
The King family has expressed concerns that releasing the records into Dr King would focus attention on his well-documented sexual indiscretions.
They also raised worries about whether doing so would feed a revisionist – negative – view of a man who has come to embody the fight against systemic racism and the call for a robust federal defence of minority groups that Mr Trump has largely moved to reverse since taking office.
Trump administration officials have been in contact with Dr King’s family, although it remains unclear if they were given the right to request redactions of material.
Dr King’s two living children, Dr Bernice King and Mr Martin Luther King III, asked researchers and the public to view all of the material in the context of his contributions to American society.
“We recognise that the release of documents concerning the assassination of our father, Dr Martin Luther King Jr, has long been a subject of interest, captivating public curiosity for decades,” they wrote in a statement.
“We ask those who engage with the release of these files to do so with empathy, restraint and respect for our family’s continuing grief.”
In March, the Justice Department moved to unseal Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) surveillance records in the King case about two years before their court-ordered release. The request was initially made over the objections of the civil rights organisation Dr King founded.
Mr Ed Martin, who then served as the Trump-appointed interim US attorney for the District of Columbia, cited “strong public interest in understanding the truth about the assassination”.
The request was a reversal for the FBI and the Justice Department, which have blocked or slow-walked the release of investigative files for decades under presidents from both parties.
Mr Trump, who ordered the move, has floated other theories about political assassinations, stoking doubts about the role played by the bureau in perpetuating those theories.
“The American people deserve answers decades after the horrific assassination of one of our nation’s great leaders,” Attorney-General Pam Bondi said in a statement announcing their release.
In 2024, as a candidate, Mr Trump vowed to release files related to president John F. Kennedy’s 1963 assassination and the 1968 murders of Mr Robert F. Kennedy and Dr King. NYTIMES
