Trump administration releases flood of FBI records on Martin Luther King Jr.
The Trump administration has released records of the FBI's surveillance of Martin Luther King Jr., despite opposition from the slain Nobel laureate's family and the civil rights group that he led until his 1968 assassination.
The digital document dump includes more than 240,000 pages of records that had been under a court-imposed seal since 1977, when the FBI first gathered the records and turned them over to the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
In a lengthy statement released Monday, King's two living children, Martin Luther King III, 67, and Bernice, 62, said their father's assassination has been a "captivating public curiosity for decades." But the pair emphasized the personal nature of the matter, urging that the files "be viewed within their full historical context."
The Kings got advance access to the records and had their own teams reviewing them. Those efforts continued even as the government granted public access. It was not immediately clear Monday whether the documents would shed any new light on King's life, the civil rights movement or his murder.
"As the children of Dr. King and Mrs. Coretta Scott King, his tragic death has been an intensely personal grief — a devastating loss for his wife, children, and the granddaughter he never met — an absence our family has endured for over 57 years," they wrote. "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."
They also repeated the family's long-held contention that James Earl Ray, the man convicted of assassinating King, was not solely responsible, if at all.
Bernice King was five years old when her father was killed. Martin III was 10.
Trump orders files on assassinations of JFK, MLK, RFK to be declassified | Canada Tonight
6 months ago
'Unprecedented' disclosure: Gabbard
A statement from the office of U.S. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard called the disclosure "unprecedented" and said many of the records had been digitized for the first time to make it possible.
She praised U.S. President Donald Trump for pushing the issue.
Trump promised as a candidate to release files related to U.S. president John F. Kennedy's 1963 assassination. When Trump took office in January, he signed an executive order to declassify the JFK records, along with files associated with the 1968 assassinations of Robert F. Kennedy and King.
The government unsealed the JFK records in March and disclosed some RFK files in April.
The announcement from Gabbard's office included a statement from Alveda King, Martin Luther King Jr.'s niece, who is an outspoken conservative and has broken from King's children on various topics — including the FBI files. Alveda King said she was "grateful to President Trump" for his "transparency."
Separately Monday, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi's social media account featured a picture of the attorney general with Alveda King in her office.
Attempt to distract from Epstein: Sharpton
Besides fulfilling Trump's executive order, the latest release serves as another alternative headline for the president as he tries to mollify supporters angry over his administration's handling of records concerning the investigation of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who killed himself behind bars in 2019 while awaiting trial on federal charges of trafficking underage girls.
Trump last Friday ordered the U.S. Justice Department to release grand jury testimony relating to the Epstein case, but stopped short of unsealing the entire file.
Bernice King and Martin Luther King III did not mention Trump in their statement Monday.
Some civil rights activists were not so sparing.
"Trump releasing the MLK assassination files is not about transparency or justice," said the Rev. Al Sharpton. "It's a desperate attempt to distract people from the firestorm engulfing Trump over the Epstein files and the public unravelling of his credibility among the MAGA base."
WATCH | Why Trump's base is disappointed over Epstein files:
Semafor's David Weigel on deepening disappointment among Trump loyalists over the Epstein files
2 days ago
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The King records were initially intended to be sealed until 2027, until U.S. Justice Department attorneys asked a federal judge to lift the sealing order ahead of its expiration date.
Scholars, history buffs and journalists have been preparing to study the documents to find new information about King's assassination on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tenn., where he was aiding striking sanitation workers.
The Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which King co-founded in 1957 as the civil rights movement blossomed, opposed the release.
They, along with King's family, argued that the FBI illegally surveilled King and other civil rights figures, tapping their offices and phone lines with the aim of discrediting them and their movement.
It has long been established that then-FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover was intensely interested if not obsessed with King and others that he considered radicals. FBI records released previously show how Hoover's bureau wiretapped King's telephone lines, bugged his hotel rooms and used informants to get information against him.
"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 (FBI)," the King children said in their statement.
The Kings said they "support transparency and historical accountability" but "object to any attacks on our father's legacy or attempts to weaponize it to spread falsehoods."
King's children suggest Ray was set up
Ray plead guilty to assassinating King. He later renounced that plea and maintained his innocence until his death in 1998.
Members of King's family, and others, have long questioned whether Ray acted alone, or if he was even involved.
Coretta Scott King asked for the probe to be reopened, and in 1998, then-U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno directed the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Justice Department to take a new look. The Justice Department said it "found nothing to disturb the 1969 judicial determination that James Earl Ray murdered Dr. King."
In their latest statement, Bernice King and Martin Luther King III repeated their assertions that Ray was set up, pointing to a 1999 civil case in which a Memphis jury in a wrongful death case concluded that Martin Luther King Jr. had been the target of a conspiracy.
"As we review these newly released files," the Kings said, "we will assess whether they offer additional insights beyond the findings our family has already accepted."
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