Trump signs order declassifying files on JFK, RFK, and MLK Jr. assassinations

President Donald Trump signed an executive order to declassify files on the assassinations of civil rights icon Martin Luther King, Jr. former President John F. Kennedy and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy on Thursday. 

"Everything will be revealed," Trump told reporters as he signed the order in the Oval Office of the White House.

Trump handed the pen used to sign the order to an aide and directed it to be given to RFK’s son Robert F. Kennedy Jr., his nominee to be health and human services secretary who had long called for their release.

FILE - Images of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. (L), former President John F. Kennedy (M) and former Sen. Robert F. Kennedy (R). (Credit: Getty Images) 

Previous document dump

The backstory:

Trump had promised he would release all the files related to JFK during his first term. 

An undisclosed amount of material remains under wraps regarding the former president and his untimely death on Nov. 22, 1963, to this day. 

The CIA and the FBI made appeals to block the release of those files and Trump obliged at the time. 

Trump said the potential harm to U.S. national security, law enforcement or foreign affairs is "of such gravity that it outweighs the public interest in immediate disclosure." 

Only a few thousand of the millions of governmental records related to the assassination of President Kennedy have yet to be fully declassified. And while many who have studied what's been released so far say the public shouldn’t anticipate any earth-shattering revelations, there is still an intense interest in details related to the assassination and the events surrounding it.

"There’s always the possibility that something would slip through that would be the tiny tip of a much larger iceberg that would be revealing," said Larry J. Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics and author of "The Kennedy Half-Century." "That’s what researchers look for. Now, odds are you won’t find that but it is possible that it’s there."

The National Archives shared nearly 13,00 new files related to JFK’s assassination in 2022, which was the largest document release since 2018, according to The Hill. 

What does the order say? 

What's next:

The order states that the director of national intelligence and the attorney general must have a plan ready to present in 15 days to declassify the remaining JFK assassination records and will have 45 days to "review records related to the assassinations of Senator Robert F. Kennedy and the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and present a plan to the President for the full and complete release of these records."

The Source: Information for this article was gathered from an executive order signed by President Donald Trump on Jan. 23, 2025, reporting from The Hill, The Associated Press and FOX News. This story was reported from Los Angeles. 

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