Trump releases Martin Luther King assassination files
Files were posted, opens new tab on the website of the National Archives, which said more would be released.
King died of an assassin's bullet in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968, as he increasingly extended his attention from a nonviolent campaign for equal rights for African Americans to economic issues and calls for peace. His death shook the United States in a year that would also bring race riots, anti-Vietnam war demonstrations and the assassination of presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy.
Earlier this year, President Donald Trump's administration released thousands of pages of digital documents related to the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and former President John F. Kennedy, who was killed in 1963.
Trump promised on the campaign trail to provide more transparency about Kennedy's death. Upon taking office, he also ordered aides to present a plan for the release of records relating to the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and King.
The FBI kept files on King in the 1950s and 1960s - even wiretapping his phones - because of what the bureau falsely said at the time were his suspected ties to communism during the Cold War between the U.S. and Soviet Union. In recent years, the FBI has acknowledged that as an example of "abuse and overreach" in its history.
The civil rights leader's family asked those who engage with the files to "do so with empathy, restraint, and respect for our family's continuing grief," and condemned "any attempts to misuse these documents."
"Now more than ever, we must honor his sacrifice by committing ourselves to the realization of his dream – a society rooted in compassion, unity, and equality," they said in a statement.
"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 family, including his two living children, Martin III, 67, and Bernice, 62, said, referring to the then-FBI director.
James Earl Ray, a segregationist and drifter, confessed to killing King but later recanted. He died in prison in 1998.
King's family said it had filed a wrongful death civil lawsuit in Tennessee in 1999 that led to a jury unanimously concluding "that our father was the victim of a conspiracy involving Loyd Jowers and unnamed co-conspirators, including government agencies as a part of a wider scheme. The verdict also affirmed that someone other than James Earl Ray was the shooter, and that Mr. Ray was set up to take the blame. Our family views that verdict as an affirmation of our long-held beliefs."
Jowers, once a Memphis police officer, told ABC's Prime Time Live in 1993 that he participated in a plot to kill King. A 2023 Justice Department report, opens new tab called his claims dubious.
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The Sun
7 minutes ago
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Sign up to This Week in Trumpland A deep dive into the policies, controversies and oddities surrounding the Trump administration after newsletter promotion Then, after Trump tried the certain loser of a gambit of requesting the release of the Epstein grand jury material, which would almost certainly contain nothing new and was inevitably denied by the judge, he turned to another tactic. Suddenly, the deputy attorney general, Todd Blanche, who had been Trump's personal attorney in the Stormy Daniels hush-money trial, in which Trump was convicted of 34 felonies, was sent racing to Tallahassee to interview Epstein's imprisoned co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell. No mere professional prosecutor would do for this high-level mission. Instead, in an unprecedented move, the deputy attorney general would conduct the interrogation. The case, in fact, was closed after Maxwell's indictment for perjury, conviction for sex-trafficking minors and 20-year sentence. Yet Blanche stated, sloppily misspelling her first name in his haste, 'If Ghislane Maxwell has information about anyone who has committed crimes against victims, the FBI and the DOJ will hear what she has to say.' He said that Maxwell can 'finally say what really happened', as if she would perhaps prove the existence of the fictional 'client list' or some version of it to incriminate the enemies it contained, or clear Trump as a gentleman beyond reproach. Blanche's remark seemed to dangle a pardon or clemency. Asked about the possibility, Trump said, 'I'm allowed to do it.' Curiously, on 14 July, the solicitor general, D John Sauer, who was Trump's lawyer in the presidential immunity case before the US court of appeals, had filed a brief to the supreme court opposing relief that Maxwell had requested. 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'I said, 'Donald, this is supposed to be a party with VIPs. You're telling me it's you and Epstein?'' One of those models, Karen Mulder, who had appeared on the cover of Vogue the year before and was considered among the most elite supermodels, described her experience with Trump and Epstein as 'disgusting', according to the Miami Herald. A year later, in 1993, Epstein brought a Sport Illustrated swimsuit model, Stacey Williams, to Trump Tower. She had met the future president at a Christmas party in 1992. 'It became very clear then that he and Donald were really, really good friends and spent a lot of time together,' Williams told the Guardian. 'The second he was in front of me,' she recounted to CNN in 2024, 'he pulled me into him, and his hands were just on me and didn't come off. And then the hands started moving, and they were on the, you know, on the side of my breasts, on my hips, back down to my butt, back up, sort of then, you know – they were just on me the whole time. And I froze. I couldn't understand what was going on.' While Trump groped her, he kept talking to Epstein, and they were 'looking at each other and smiling'. Markus said: 'We haven't spoken to the president or anybody about a pardon just yet.' Still, he added: 'The president this morning said he had the power to do so. We hope he exercises that power in the right and just way.' The House oversight committee has subpoenaed Maxwell for a deposition on 11 August, but she has not decided yet whether to cooperate, her lawyer said. While Blanche hurried back to Washington, Trump appeared to have depleted his armory of conspiracy theories, at least for the moment. He tried a novel tack, his most audacious projection yet. 'I'm not focused on conspiracy theories that you are,' he admonished the White House press corps. Then he made a remark that he had never made before, something contrary to his entire character, which underscored the depth of his anxiety. 'Don't,' he said, 'talk about Trump.' But Trump quickly recovered from the tension of his momentary reticence, and on the evening of 26 July, from Scotland, where he was touring his golf courses, he posted that Beyoncé, Oprah Winfrey and Al Sharpton should be prosecuted for their endorsement of Kamala Harris in exchange for payments of millions of dollars. 'They should all be prosecuted!' he demanded. Though a bogus accusation, it accurately reflected Trump's crudely transactional worldview. A few hours later, in the early morning of Sunday 27 July, he posted a Fox News clip of the rightwing talker Mark Levin, writing in capital letters: 'THIS IS A MASSIVE OBAMA SCANDAL!' Sidney Blumenthal, a former senior adviser to President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton, has published three books of a projected five-volume political life of Abraham Lincoln: A Self-Made Man, Wrestling With His Angel and All the Powers of Earth. He is a Guardian US columnist and co-host of The Court of History podcast
