Latest news with #JamesEarlRay
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Trump administration releases documents in MLK assassination
The Trump administration on Monday released hundreds of thousands of documents related to the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., fulfilling a pledge from President Trump despite some reluctance from the civil rights icon's children. The release makes more than 230,000 pages of files digitally available. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said the documents include details about the FBI's investigation into King's killing in 1968, internal memos about the case and details about the pursuit of James Earl Ray, who was convicted of killing the civil rights leader. Some of the records had been publicized previously through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. But officials touted that the document dump was the first time they had been made available online with minimal redactions. 'Today's record release marks a historic step in the Trump Administration's ongoing commitment to transparency and accountability,' Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is also serving as the interim head of the National Archives (NARA), said in a statement. 'Preserving, protecting, and releasing the records of the U.S. government is at the core of NARA's mission,' Rubio added. 'Thanks to President Trump's leadership and a coordinated interagency process, NARA was able to review and release the records at an unprecedented speed.' Martin Luther King III and Bernice King, the two living children of Martin Luther King Jr., issued a lengthy statement on Monday in which they urged the public to view the newly released records 'within their full historical context,' pointing to what they called an 'invasive, predatory, and deeply disturbing disinformation and surveillance campaign orchestrated' by the FBI. '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,' the King children said in a statement. 'We strongly condemn any attempts to misuse these documents in ways intended to undermine our father's legacy and the significant achievements of the movement. Those who promote the fruit of the FBI's surveillance will unknowingly align themselves with an ongoing campaign to degrade our father and the Civil Rights Movement.' Within days of taking office in January, Trump signed an executive order Thursday directing the release of federal government documents related to the assassinations of King, former President John F. Kennedy and former Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy. King was shot and killed in Memphis in April 1968, and his assassination has remained the subject of conspiracy theories. 'While we continue to mourn his death, the declassification and release of these documents are a historic step towards the truth that the American people deserve,' King's niece, Alveda King, said in a statement shared by the Trump administration. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Fox News
6 days ago
- Politics
- Fox News
7 details revealed in newly released MLK files
President Donald Trump's administration released the government's files on the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. this week, shedding new light on the demise of one of America's most famous citizens. The release includes 6,301 documents and one audio file of an interview with the brother of assassin James Earl Ray. In total, the release boasts 243,496 pages. Here are seven of the most important details inside. One Texas man, Joseph Meyer, told investigators that he may have seen MLK's killer in Mississippi two weeks prior to the killing. A report on his comments to police said he encountered a man firing a rifle into a tree while on a fishing trip with his son. "He and his son went fishing near Picayune on a Sunday morning between about 8:00 AM and 9:30 AM. They were approaching a small fishing lake on Ridge Road when they noticed a man laying behind a light colored Ford Mustang shooting a rifle into a target on a tree about 40 yards away," the report reads. "He and his son parked their car at the small lake nearby and began fishing. The man with the rifle, which he observed to be a lever action and either new or very well taken care of, came up to them and started talking to him. The man said he was bore sighting the rifle, but he wished his brother was there because he was more experienced at this. They talked of fishing, hunting and general topics. The man did not talk with an accent and gave the impression of not being from that area. "The man was dressed in canvas field hunting clothes. He was about 5'10" to 11" tall, 175 pounds, dark wavy hair well groomed. Meyer has observed photographs of James Earl Ray and he stated that some of the photographs definitely do not look like the man he saw, but one of the photographs he recently saw in Look Magazine, the one without glasses, in some ways resembles the man he saw firing the rifle. He said he does not believe he would be able to identify the man he saw even if he saw him again," the report continued. "Meyer thought nothing of the incident until he heard of the shooting of Martin Luther King. Then he thought there might possibly be some connection, but he did not report the matter to the local police because he was afraid they would only laugh at him. He said he went back to the area [where] the man was firing and was unable to find any cartridges. He looked at the tree that had been shot at and noted that the places where the bullets hit indicated that a high-powered cartridge was used," the report said. READ THE FILE – APP USERS, CLICK HERE: The CIA compiled a five-page report on Cuba's response to MLK's assassination, including reports from Cuban independent and state-controlled media. The report shows that Granma, the official newspaper for Cuba's communist party, highlighted the violence and riots that took place in the wake of MLK's death. "Twenty-seven persons have been killed in the U.S. as a result of the fighting which has been going on since the assassination of Martin Luther King. In Washington alone there are 750 wounded and 4,186 persons arrested. Snipers continue to be active in different cities in the U.S. The White House and the Capitol are under heavy guard," the paper wrote, according to the CIA report. The report also highlighted Cuban radio outlets and others amplifying calls for violence from certain "black power" activists. One such message came from Stokely Carmichael, who urged Black Americans to "arm ourselves with rifles and pistols and launch an assault on the streets of the cities of the United States." Radio Liberacion also highlighted Carmichael's prediction that there would be "executions in the streets." READ THE FILE – APP USERS, CLICK HERE: An FBI report included in the release says that a man threatened to murder MLK during a May 1967 appearance in Wisconsin. The FBI said they received a call from an anonymous male vowing to "put a bullet through KING's head." Investigators determined that man to be Theodore Adank, with local police saying he was a possible mental case who could have capabilities of committing violence. "At the news conference held by King on 5/12/67 the area was sealed off by police to ensure that only newsmen were admitted," the FBI reported. "Theodore Adank showed up on that occasion posing as a newsman, but was evicted by local police." Investigators returned to interview Adank in the days after MLK's death, but they uncovered no connection to the assassination. "Adank was interviewed by [special agents] Kenna and Walker on 4/8/68 and impressed interviewing agents as being somewhat of a mental case," the report read. "Adank advised he has been in Wausau during the entire recent 2-week period except for one occasion when he traveled to Milwaukee, Wis. for treatment at a Wood, Wis. VA Center in connection with his medical disability pension." READ THE FILE – APP USERS, CLICK HERE: The FBI became aware of several aliases Ray used in the lead-up to MLK's murder. Documents show he used two different names while purchasing the murder weapon from a gun store in Birmingham, Alabama, on March 29 and 30, just days before the assassination. Ray identified himself to the store clerks as "Harvey Lowmeyer," though he used an address and drove a vehicle linked to another alias, "Eric Galt." FBI agents connected the two aliases when store clerks were shown a picture of "Galt" and said he was identical to "Lowmeyer." "Galt first visited Aeromarine Supply Company on two occasions: Friday, 3/29/68, when be purchased a .243 caliber Remington rifle, Model 700, which was equipped with Redfield scope. On following day, Saturday, 3/30/68, same individual returned after telephonic contact and exchanged this rifle for the murder weapon, a Remington Model 760, 30.06 caliber, to which scope was attached," the FBI report reads. READ THE FILE – APP USERS, CLICK HERE: Ray's younger brother, Jerry Ray, conducted an interview with law enforcement following MLK's murder, and he suggested to them that his brother may have been paid by a third party to be "used" in the attack. He told law enforcement that he hadn't seen James in four years, when he visited his elder brother in prison. "I don't think he was involved. I think he was used as a--he was used some way in it, though. I think that because, you know, of the money he spent and all that. I think his name was used, and because he couldn't turn himself in because he had so much time to do in Missouri. I think he was implicated in some way, more likely used," Jerry said. "Are you saying that someone paid him to pretend to be King's murderer?" the interviewer asked. "Well they have two Eric Starvo Galts within about two miles of each other, and every time he went some place there would be another guy like him, and it seems kind of strange," Jerry responded. Jerry went on to say he believes his brother thought it was "honorable" not to reveal whether anyone else was involved in King's murder. He then said he planned to go to Memphis and talk to his brother once Ray arrived in the city in police custody. "If he definitely didn't do it, he'll tell me that, but he won't tell me the other things, how come he was used or what," Jerry predicted of talking with Ray. "But he'll tell me if he did or if he didn't do it, but he won't implicate anybody else." "So, Jerry, your whole theory is that Ray was paid to implicate himself?" the interviewer pressed. "That's what my theory is," he responded. "I figure he was paid for his name being used. That's as far as I think he's involved in it." Missives from the Chinese Communist Party collected by U.S. intelligence called for Americans to begin an uprising against "yankee imperialists." The booklet, found with both Spanish and English translations, was titled "Statement by Comrade Mao Tse-Tung, Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, in Support of the Afro-American Struggle Against Violent Repression." Published roughly a week after MLK's death, the book "cites the Negro struggle in the United States as part of the world struggle against the 'yankee imperialists,' and asserts that the world revolution has entered a new era, and urges all people to unite and eliminate this enemy," the FBI report reads. READ THE FILE – APP USERS, CLICK HERE: Included in the trove of documents released this week is a CIA paper titled "Talking Points for Interview with Dan Rather," with the date of Oct. 29, 1975. "The CIA was in no way involved in the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King," the proposed talking points begin. "In addition, I would like again to deny categorically that there was any CIA like involvement in the assassinations of President Kennedy or Senator Robert Kennedy, or the attempted assassination of Governor Wallace." The talking points document does not identify the CIA official for whom it was intended. Rather and CBS published an interview with then-CIA Director William Colby on Nov. 26, 1975. The interview focused on supposed CIA ties to Lee Harvey Oswald, but did not address MLK's assassination in the broadcasted portion. Rather did publish a segment on MLK's death in late November 1975, but the segment did not include any interview with a CIA official. READ THE FILE – APP USERS, CLICK HERE:
USA Today
7 days ago
- Politics
- USA Today
Newly released MLK files: What's in them and what's left out?
Historians assessing the trove of newly released documents are cautioning people against the idea that they contain any groundbreaking information. Among details included in a newly released trove of documents related to the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.: assassin James Earl Ray took dance classes and had a penchant for using aliases based on James Bond novels, according to researchers. But likely not among the nearly a quarter million pages released by the National Archives and Administration on July 21 is anything that changes the narrative cemented when Ray pleaded guilty to King's murder in 1969, historians say. "The idea that there's some sort of secret document showing that J. Edgar Hoover did it is not how any of this works. Part of the challenge is getting the American public to understand it's nowhere near as exciting," said Michael Cohen, a University of California, Berkeley professor and author of a book on conspiracies in American politics. "By all means the government should release all the documents that they have and they should have done it 20 years ago," Cohen said. "The issue is about what our expectations are for what's going to be found." National Archives officials released the over 6,000 documents in accordance with an executive order signed by President Donald Trump in January. Officials released the documents over objections from members of the King family. The files are available for the public to read online at the National Archives website. Historians say it will take weeks to fully understand what they reveal. Trump's Jan. 23, 2025 executive order also called for the release of records related to the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy. The full findings of the government investigations into the three killings have been hidden for decades, sparking wide-ranging speculation and preventing a sense of closure for many Americans. All three men were national and international icons whose assassinations — and the theories swirling around them — became the stuff of books, movies, controversy, and the pages of history itself. More: Trump's release of assassination docs opens window into nation's most debated mysteries What's in the King files? The newly released records come from the FBI's investigation of the King assassination, records the Central Intelligence Agency deemed related to the assassination and a file from the State Department on the extradition of James Earl Ray, who pleaded guilty in 1969 to murdering King. David Barrett, a historian at Villanova University, said the files will likely contain new, interesting information. But as was the case with the JFK files released in March, the material likely isn't groundbreaking. "I'm not seeing anything that strikes me as surprising," said Barrett, author of multiple books on presidents and intelligence agencies. "Unless they want to write about the investigation, I don't know that this will have an impact on the scholarship." Noteworthy in the files, Barrett said, are details concerning how the FBI connected Ray to King, how they found him and extradited him back to the U.S. from the United Kingdom, where he had fled. "It does take weeks to go through these, so there might be some important revelatory things but I doubt it," said the political science professor. "It's not exactly what people were hoping for and not what the King family was fearing." Many of the files are also illegible due to age and digitization. Archives officials said the agency was working with other federal partners to uncover records related to the King assassination and that records will be added to the website on a rolling basis. 'Now, do the Epstein files': MLK's daughter knocks Trump over records release What's not in the King files? Not among the newly released documents are details of FBI surveillance into King that historians say could include recordings agency director J. Edgar Hoover hoped to use as blackmail against the Georgia preacher. Experts say Hoover's wiretappings of King's hotel rooms, which are believed to contain evidence of infidelity, are likely what his family fears being made public. The New York Times reported the recordings remain under seal pursuant to a court order until 2027. But UC Berkeley professor Cohen said the documents likely haven't been revealed for multiple reasons. "There's claims that these are major government secrets and so whatever they might contain might be true and that's not the case," Cohen said. "Any large-scale government investigation often includes all sorts of spurious claims, hearsay evidence, things of which there's no truth and part of the reason why they get withheld is bureaucratic inertia and also the need to check their veracity." What does the FBI have to hide? Hoover's recordings might also prove a double-edged sword for the FBI, according to Cohen: "Will these files contain things that will upset the King family? That's possible. But they'll also likely reveal just how massively the FBI violated King's civil liberties." FBI agents began monitoring King in 1955, according to researchers at Stanford University. Hoover believed King was a communist and after the Georgia preacher criticized the agency's activities in the Deep South in 1964, the original FBI director began targeting King using the agency's counterintelligence program COINTELPRO, Stanford researchers said. COINTELPRO was a controversial program that a 1975 U.S. Senate investigation slammed, saying: "Many of the techniques used would be intolerable in a democratic society even if all of the targets had been involved in violent activity," the Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities said in its final report. "The Bureau conducted a sophisticated vigilante operation aimed squarely at preventing the exercise of First Amendment rights of speech and association." The agency went so far as to send King a recording secretly made from his hotel room that an agent testified was aimed at destroying King's marriage, according to a 1976 U.S. Senate investigation. King interpreted a note sent with the tape as a threat to release recording unless King committed suicide, the Senate report said. MLK assassinated in Memphis, April 4, 1968 The official story of how King died is that he was killed on the balcony outside his motel room in Memphis, Tennessee on April 4, 1968. He stepped outside to speak with colleagues in the parking lot below and was shot in the face by an assassin. James Earl Ray, a 40-year-old escaped fugitive, later confessed to the crime and was sentenced to a 99-year prison term. But Ray later tried to withdraw his confession and said he was set up by a man named Raoul. He maintained until his death in 1998 that he did not kill King. The recanted confession and the FBI's shadowy operations under J. Edgar Hoover have sparked widespread conspiracy theories over who really killed the civil rights icon. King's children have said they don't believe Ray was the shooter and that they support the findings of a 1999 wrongful death lawsuit that found that King was the victim of a broad conspiracy that involved government agents. Department of Justice officials maintain that the findings of the civil lawsuit are not credible. Read the MLK files Looking to read the MLK files yourself? You can find them on the National Archives' website here. Most of the files are scans of documents, and some are blurred or have become faint or difficult to read in the decades since King's assassination. There are also photographs and sound recordings.
USA Today
7 days ago
- Politics
- USA Today
MLK files: What's in them and what's left out?
Historians assessing the trove of newly released documents are cautioning people against the idea that they contain any groundbreaking information. Among details included in a newly released trove of documents related to the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.: assassin James Earl Ray took dance classes and had a penchant for using aliases based on James Bond novels, according to researchers. Likely not among the nearly a quarter million pages released by the National Archives and Administration on July 21 is anything that changes the narrative cemented when Ray pleaded guilty to King's murder in 1969, historians say. "By all means the government should release all the documents that they have and they should have done it 20 years ago. The issue is about what our expectations are for what's going to be found," said Michael Cohen, a University of California, Berkeley professor and author of a book on conspiracies in American politics. "The idea that there's some sort of secret document showing that J. Edgar Hoover did it is not how any of this works. Part of the challenge is getting the American public to understand it's nowhere near as exciting." National Archives officials released the over 6,000 documents in accordance with an executive order signed by President Donald Trump in January. Officials released the documents over objections from members of the King family. The files are available for the public to read online at the National Archives website. Historians say it will take weeks to fully understand what they reveal. Trump's Jan. 23, 2025 executive order also called for the release of records related to the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy. The full findings of the government investigations into the three killings have been hidden for decades, sparking wide-ranging speculation and preventing a sense of closure for many Americans. All three men were national and international icons whose assassinations — and the theories swirling around them — became the stuff of books, movies, controversy, and the pages of history itself. More: Trump's release of assassination docs opens window into nation's most debated mysteries What's in the King files? The newly released records come from the FBI's investigation of the King assassination, records the Central Intelligence Agency deemed related to the assassination and a file from the State Department on the extradition of James Earl Ray, who pleaded guilty in 1969 to murdering King. David Barrett, a historian at Villanova University, said the files will likely contain new, interesting information. But as was the case with the JFK files released in March, the material likely isn't groundbreaking. "I'm not seeing anything that strikes me as surprising," said Barrett, author of multiple books on presidents and intelligence agencies. "Unless they want to write about the investigation, I don't know that this will have an impact on the scholarship." Noteworthy in the files, Barrett said, are details concerning how the FBI connected Ray to King, how they found him and extradited him back to the U.S. from the United Kingdom, where he had fled. "It does take weeks to go through these, so there might be some important revelatory things but I doubt it," said the political science professor. "It's not exactly what people were hoping for and not what the King family was fearing." Many of the files are also illegible due to age and digitization. Archives officials said the agency was working with other federal partners to uncover records related to the King assassination and that records will be added to the website on a rolling basis. 'Now, do the Epstein files': MLK's daughter knocks Trump over records release What's not in the King files? Not among the newly released documents are details of FBI surveillance into King that historians say could include recordings agency director J. Edgar Hoover hoped to use as blackmail against the Georgia preacher. Experts say Hoover's wiretappings of King's hotel rooms, which are believed to contain evidence of infidelity, are likely what his family fears being made public. The New York Times reported the recordings remain under seal pursuant to a court order until 2027. But UC Berkeley professor Cohen said the documents likely haven't been revealed for multiple reasons. "There's claims that these are major government secrets and so whatever they might contain might be true and that's not the case," Cohen said. "Any large-scale government investigation often includes all sorts of spurious claims, hearsay evidence, things of which there's no truth and part of the reason why they get withheld is bureaucratic inertia and also the need to check their veracity." What does the FBI have to hide? Hoover's recordings might also prove a double-edged sword for the FBI, according to Cohen: "Will these files contain things that will upset the King family? That's possible. But they'll also likely reveal just how massively the FBI violated King's civil liberties." FBI agents began monitoring King in 1955, according to researchers at Stanford University. Hoover believed King was a communist and after the Georgia preacher criticized the agency's activities in the Deep South in 1964, the original FBI director began targeting King using the agency's counterintelligence program COINTELPRO, Stanford researchers said. COINTELPRO was a controversial program that a 1975 U.S. Senate investigation slammed, saying: "Many of the techniques used would be intolerable in a democratic society even if all of the targets had been involved in violent activity," the Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities said in its final report. "The Bureau conducted a sophisticated vigilante operation aimed squarely at preventing the exercise of First Amendment rights of speech and association." The agency went so far as to send King a recording secretly made from his hotel room that an agent testified was aimed at destroying King's marriage, according to a 1976 U.S. Senate investigation. King interpreted a note sent with the tape as a threat to release recording unless King committed suicide, the Senate report said. MLK assassinated in Memphis, April 4, 1968 The official story of how King died is that he was killed on the balcony outside his motel room in Memphis, Tennessee on April 4, 1968. He stepped outside to speak with colleagues in the parking lot below and was shot in the face by an assassin. James Earl Ray, a 40-year-old escaped fugitive, later confessed to the crime and was sentenced to a 99-year prison term. But Ray later tried to withdraw his confession and said he was set up by a man named Raoul. He maintained until his death in 1998 that he did not kill King. The recanted confession and the FBI's shadowy operations under J. Edgar Hoover have sparked widespread conspiracy theories over who really killed the civil rights icon. King's children have said they don't believe Ray was the shooter and that they support the findings of a 1999 wrongful death lawsuit that found that King was the victim of a broad conspiracy that involved government agents. Department of Justice officials maintain that the findings of the civil lawsuit are not credible. Read the MLK files Looking to read the MLK files yourself? You can find them on the National Archives' website here. Most of the files are scans of documents, and some are blurred or have become faint or difficult to read in the decades since King's assassination. There are also photographs and sound recordings.
Al Jazeera
22-07-2025
- Politics
- Al Jazeera
Trump dumps a pile of MLK files. Why not the Epstein files?
Nearly six decades after the assassination of United States civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr (MLK) in 1968, the White House has released more than 230,000 pages of once-classified files relating to his murder. After becoming president in January, Donald Trump signed an executive order declassifying documents related to the assassinations of King, former President John F Kennedy and former Senator Robert F Kennedy. The MLK files largely reinforce the longstanding official conclusion that James Earl Ray, the convicted assassin, acted alone with no conclusive evidence of a broader conspiracy. The files released on Monday add to the well-documented record of FBI surveillance and harassment of King, including efforts to discredit and intimidate him in the years leading up to his assassination. So what do the MLK files offer? What was the FBI operation against him? And why has Trump released them now? What are the MLK files? The MLK files are the trove of documents related to both the FBI's surveillance of King throughout the 1950s and 1960s and the investigation into his assassination in 1968. The records were put under a court-imposed seal in 1977 after the FBI compiled them and turned them over to the National Archives and Records Administration. The files include internal memos, wiretap transcripts, informant reports and correspondence from then-FBI Director J Edgar Hoover and senior officials, reflecting how the FBI viewed King as a political threat due to his civil rights activism. Advertisement A major focus is the FBI's covert campaign to discredit and intimidate King, which included bugging his hotel rooms, infiltrating his inner circle and even sending him an anonymous letter urging him to commit suicide in 1964. The FBI also falsely labelled King as a communist sympathiser based on his ties to former Communist Party member Stanley Levison, using this claim to justify illegal surveillance and attempts to destroy his reputation. These operations were part of the FBI's wider COINTELPRO programme, which targeted activists and dissenters across the country. Did the files reveal anything new? The newly released MLK files do not reveal any dramatic new evidence about his assassination or secret plots. The files largely reinforce what was already known: Ray was convicted as the lone shooter, and the FBI engaged in an extensive surveillance campaign. The communications also suggest the FBI considered multiple suspects beyond Ray but dropped those leads. Ray confessed to killing King in 1969 but later recanted and claimed he was framed. Before being arrested, Ray was on the run for nearly two months. He fled to Canada, Portugal and the United Kingdom before being extradited to the US, where he was convicted and sentenced to 99 years in prison. He died in April 1998 from complications related to kidney and liver disease. The documents reaffirm that the FBI, under the direction of Hoover, viewed King as a subversive figure and engaged in extensive surveillance and disinformation campaigns against him. These tactics, which included wiretaps and anonymous threats, have been public knowledge for decades, particularly after the findings of the US Senate's Church Committee in the 1970s. The new files appear to confirm this history while adding more granular details. They provide additional internal records and memos that reinforce previous accounts of the bureau's efforts to discredit King and monitor his activities. Notably, the release does not contain new evidence implicating anyone beyond Ray in King's assassination. But King scholars would like to see the information the FBI was discussing and circulating as part of its investigation, Ryan Jones, director of history, interpretation and curatorial services at the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tennessee told The Associated Press news agency. 'That's critical given the fact the American public, at that time, was unaware that the FBI that is involved in the investigation was leading a smear campaign to discredit the same man while he was alive,' Jones was quoted as saying. 'They were the same bureau who was receiving notices of assassination attempts against King and ignored them.' What is the civil rights movement? The civil rights movement was a decades-long struggle, primarily in the US during the 1950s and 1960s, aimed at ending racial segregation and discrimination against African Americans. Advertisement Rooted in centuries of resistance to slavery and racial injustice, the movement gained momentum after World War II as Black Americans demanded equal treatment under the law and full access to political, social and economic rights guaranteed by the US Constitution. Led by figures such as Malcolm X, Rosa Parks, King and countless grassroots activists, the movement employed strategies ranging from peaceful protests and legal challenges to civil disobedience and mass mobilisation. Landmark events like the Montgomery bus boycott in Alabama; the March on Washington, where King delivered his 'I Have a Dream' speech; and the Selma-to-Montgomery marches, also in Alabama, pressured lawmakers and reshaped public opinion. These efforts led to major legislative victories, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. What was this FBI operation? The FBI's operation against King was primarily conducted under the Counterintelligence Program, known as COINTELPRO, a covert initiative launched by the FBI under Hoover. Initiated in 1956, COINTELPRO targeted various organisations, but its focus on King and the broader civil rights movement intensified in the early 1960s, particularly as King's prominence grew. The FBI labelled King a national security threat, suspecting communist influence within the civil rights movement although no such ties were ever substantiated. Declassified documents outline a systematic campaign to monitor King's activities, undermine his leadership and tarnish his public image through surveillance and psychological tactics. Wiretaps were placed on King's home and office phones, and hidden microphones were installed in hotel rooms where he stayed. These efforts, authorised by Attorney General Robert F Kennedy in 1963, were often abused to collect salacious details about King's private life, particularly extramarital affairs. In 1964, the FBI sent an anonymous letter to King accompanied by an audiotape it pulled from bugged hotel rooms that allegedly was evidence of his affairs and urged him to commit suicide to avoid public disgrace. The FBI's operation against King, which continued until his assassination in 1968, reflected Hoover's animosity and the agency's broader paranoia about civil rights activism disrupting the status quo. 'He was relentlessly targeted by an invasive, predatory, and deeply disturbing disinformation and surveillance campaign,' a King family statement said. Why did Trump release them now? The Trump administration released the MLK files despite opposition from his family and the political group he once led. In a statement, Attorney General Pamela Bondi said: 'The American people deserve answers decades after the horrific assassination of one of our nation's great leaders.' Trump's order for the files to be released said it was in the 'national interest' to release the records. 'Their families and the American people deserve transparency and truth,' it said. Advertisement Bondi hosted Alveda King, a conservative commentator and MLK's niece, at the Department of Justice to commemorate the release of the files. Alveda said she was grateful to Trump 'for delivering on their pledge of transparency in the release of these documents on the assassination' of King. The King family said in its statement that it had hoped to get an opportunity to review the files as a family before their public release. In a statement released on Monday, King's children called their father's case a 'captivating public curiosity for decades' but emphasised that 'these files must be viewed within their full historical context.' '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,' the statement said. Has Trump released other files? Before releasing the MLK files, Trump declassified thousands of documents related to the assassinations of former President Kennedy (JFK) and his younger brother, Robert F Kennedy, calling it a push for transparency. In March, the National Archives released tens of thousands of pages concerning JFK's 1963 assassination, including previously redacted FBI and CIA records. These documents offered further detail on the intelligence tracking of JFK assassin Lee Harvey Oswald and US surveillance efforts during the Cold War. After that, from April to June, the Trump administration released more than 70,000 pages related to the 1968 assassination of Senator Kennedy. These records included FBI field reports, informant files and internal memos. While many hailed this latest release, Trump also faced criticism from other leaders who called it a political distraction at a time when pressure has been mounting over the president's handling of sex offender Jeffrey Epstein files. The Epstein files detail the life and connections of the disgraced financier with deep ties to elite political, business and cultural circles. Calls for transparency have intensified after renewed demands from civil society, victims advocates and bipartisan lawmakers who argued that shielding the full extent of Epstein's connections undermines justice and accountability.
