Trump admin releases MLK's files despite family objection
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Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. speaks at the March Against Fear rally in Philadelphia, Mississippi, on June 1966. The march went to Philadelphia to protest the unsolved murders of three civil rights workers in 1964. Photo: lip Schulke Archives/Corbis via Getty Images
Despite protests from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s family and the civil rights group he once led, the Trump administration has made public records of the FBI's surveillance of the slain civil rights icon.
Why it matters: The move pits President Trump's determination to release documents the government has kept secret for more than a half-century against the family's lingering pain over how J. Edgar Hoover's FBI spied on King and tried to intimidate and humiliate him.
- It comes amid growing calls for Trump to release the Epstein files after his administration concluded that there is no evidence to suggest the disgraced financier was murdered or kept a "client list."
- King's surviving daughter, Bernice King, referenced this in a post to X late Monday of a photo of her father with the comment: "Now, do the Epstein files."
Driving the news: Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard released on Monday over 230,000 pages of documents related to the 1968 assassination of MLK, the agency announced.
- In January, Trump ordered the release of all records the U.S. government still holds about King's assassination, as well as the assassinations of President Kennedy (1963) and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy (1968).
- The newly released MLK files had never been digitized and had spent decades "gathering dust in federal archives," the agency said.
Zoom in: The documents detail the FBI's investigation into MLK's assassination — including case leads, internal memos tracking progress, and records about James Earl Ray's former cellmate, who claimed Ray spoke of a possible assassination plot.
- The release also includes evidence from a Canadian police department, and never-before-seen CIA records that outline overseas intelligence on the international hunt for Ray, the prime suspect in the assassination.
What they're saying: "The American people deserve answers decades after the horrific assassination of one of our nation's great leaders," Attorney General Pam Bondi said after the release.
- "The Department of Justice is proud to partner with Director Gabbard and the ODNI at President Trump's direction for this latest disclosure."
- The new documents will be uploaded alongside the previously released files at archives.gov/mlk to ensure all MLK assassination documents can be found in a centralized location, the ODNI said.
Yes, but: King's two surviving adult children, in a statement, asked that "those who engage with the release of these files to do so with empathy, restraint, and respect for our family's continuing grief."
- Martin Luther King III and Bernice A. King had wanted an "advanced viewing" of the documents, and the ODNI said members of the King family were provided an opportunity to review the files two weeks before the release.
- "During our father's lifetime, he was relentlessly targeted by an invasive, predatory, and deeply disturbing disinformation and surveillance campaign orchestrated by J. Edgar Hoover through the Federal Bureau of Investigation," the Kings said.
- "While we support transparency and historical accountability, we object to any attacks on our father's legacy or attempts to weaponize it to spread falsehoods."
Flashback: King's assassination at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis has long fueled conspiracy theories about potential government involvement, especially because of the FBI's hostility toward him.
- In 1969, Ray, a career criminal, pleaded guilty to shooting King but later recanted his confession, saying he was part of a larger conspiracy.
- Allegations of government complicity have persisted for decades, with civil rights leaders, investigative authors and Ray's attorneys citing the FBI, Memphis police, and Missouri State Penitentiary — from which Ray escaped a year before the killing — as potential conspirators.
Between the lines: The promise of complete disclosure alarmed the King family, who were hurt in 2019 by the release of FBI files that alleged sordid details about King's sex life, a family friend said.
King's pursuit of civil rights through nonviolence is his enduring legacy. But as his work unfolded in the 1960s, Hoover and others in the U.S. government sought to prevent the rise of what they feared would be a Black "messiah" who could unify African Americans.
- Congress formally recognized King's iconic status by approving a federal holiday in his honor more than 15 years after he was killed in Memphis.
- In the following decades, his legacy drew bipartisan admiration. More recently, however, far-right commentators such as Charlie Kirk, a Trump ally, began criticizing King.
Go deeper:
- MLK's family fears records set for release will contain FBI "smears"
- MLK's daughter urges Americans to "stay woke" ahead of Trump's return
- MLK's words resonate with both sides of Israeli-Palestinian conflict
Editor's note: This article has been updated with comment from Bernice King and further context.
