The Trump administration has released FBI surveillance records of Martin Luther King Jr., who led until his assassination in 1968 despite opposition from the family and civil rights groups of the murdered Nobel Prize winner.
Since the FBI first collected records and handed them over to the National Archives Administration in 1977, digital documents dumped over 240,000 pages of records contained under a court-imposed seal.
In a lengthy statement released Monday, King’s two living children, Martin Luther King III, 67, and Bernice, 62, said their father’s assassination had been “a fascinating public curiosity for decades.” But the two emphasized the personal nature of the problem, urging “to view the document in its complete historical context.”
The kings visited the records in advance and had their own teams reviewed them. These efforts continue even as the government grants public access. It is unclear whether the documents will provide any new revelation for the king’s life, the civil rights movement or his murder on Monday.
“As the children of Dr. King and Mrs. Coretta Scott King, his tragic death has been a very personal sorrow, a devastating loss of his wife, children and granddaughter he never encountered – our family has been absent for more than 57 years,” they wrote. “We ask those involved in these documents to restrain and respect the ongoing sorrow of our family with empathy, restraint and respect.”
They also repeat the family’s long-standing argument that James Earl Ray, the man who was assassinated, was not entirely responsible.
Bernice King was five years old and his father was killed. Martin’s three-pointer was 10.
U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Wednesday to explain John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr.
“Unprecedented” Disclosure: Gabbard
A statement from NIA Director Tulsi Gabbard called the disclosure “unprecedented” and said many records have been digitized for the first time to make it possible.
She praised U.S. President Donald Trump for raising the question.
Trump promised to release documents as a candidate related to the 1963 assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy. When Trump took office in January, he signed an executive order to explain Kennedy Records’ records, as well as archives related to the 1968 assassination of Robert F. Kennedy and King.
The government announced the Kennedy International Airport records in March and disclosed some RFK documents in April.
Gabbard’s announcements include Alveda King, who is the niece of Martin Luther King Jr., Martin Luther King Jr., said she was “thanks to President Trump for his “transparency.”
On Monday, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi’s social media account was linked to Alveda King’s attorney general in her office.
Trying to distract Epstein: Sharpton
In addition to fulfilling Trump’s executive order, the latest release is another alternative title for the president as he attempts to touch supporters angry at the administration’s handling of his record, which investigates convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who died in 2019 while awaiting a federal trial for federal trafficking of underage girls.
Trump ordered the U.S. Department of Justice to issue grand jury testimony related to the Epstein case last Friday, but stopped the entire document.
Bernice King and Martin Luther King III did not mention Trump in their statement Monday.
There are not so few civil rights activists.
“Trump releases the MLK assassination archives has nothing to do with it,” said Rev. Al Sharpton. “This is a desperate attempt to disperse people’s fires that engulf Trump from Epstein’s archives and the public’s credibility in the base of Margoga.”
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The King’s record was originally intended to be sealed until 2027, until the U.S. Department of Justice attorneys asked a federal judge to lift the seal order before the expiration date.
Scholars, history enthusiasts and journalists have been preparing to study the documents to discover new information about King’s assassination on April 4, 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee, where he was assisting amazing health workers.
The Southern Christian Leadership Conference was co-founded in 1957 with the blooming of the Civil Rights Movement and opposed the release.
Together with the king’s family, they argued that the FBI illegally monitored the king and other civil rights figures, knocking on their offices and telephone lines in order to discredit them and their movements.
It has long been determined that then-FBI director J. Edgar Hoover was very interested if he wasn’t obsessed with King and others he considered radicals. Previous records released by the FBI show how Hoover’s bureau eavesdropped on the King’s phone line, eavesdropped on his hotel room, and used informants to get information about him.
“He was ruthless invasive, predatory and disturbing disinformation and surveillance movement orchestrated by J. Edgar Hoover through the FBI,” King Children said in a statement.
The king said they “support transparency and historical responsibility” but “oppose any attack on our father’s legacy, or attempt to weaponize it to spread falsehood”.
The King’s Children suggests that Ray set up
Lei pleaded guilty to the assassination of the king. Later, he gave up this confession and maintained his innocence until his death in 1998.
Members of the King’s family and others have long questioned whether Ray acted alone or whether he even participated.
Coretta Scott King demands reopening of the investigation. The Justice Department said, “Nothing was found to disrupt the judicial ruling of 1969 that Earl James Ray murdered Dr. King.”
Bernice King and Martin Luther King III repeated their assertions about Ray in their latest statement, pointing to the 1999 civil case in which a Memphis jury concluded in a case of wrongful death that Martin Luther King Jr. was the target of the conspiracy.
“When we review these newly released documents, we will evaluate whether they have accepted insights beyond the discovery our families have accepted,” the king said.
