Trump administration releases FBI files on Martin Luther King Jr. despite family objections
The records had been under a court-imposed seal since 1977, when the FBI first gathered the documents and handed them to the National Archives and Records Administration. King's family, including his two living children, Martin Luther King III and Bernice King, were informed in advance and had teams reviewing the documents ahead of the public release, CNN stated.
In a statement released on Monday, the siblings described the case as one that has sparked "captivating public curiosity for decades." However, they urged the public to approach the files with sensitivity and care. "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 said. "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."
CNN noted that Bernice King was five and Martin III was ten years old when their father was assassinated in 1968. President Donald Trump, who had previously pledged to release documents related to historical assassinations, signed an executive order earlier this year to declassify the JFK, RFK, and MLK records. The government released the JFK records in March and some RFK files in April.
The release of the King records also comes amid public criticism of the administration's handling of records tied to the Jeffrey Epstein case. Trump recently directed the Justice Department to release grand jury testimony related to Epstein but did not unseal the entire file, CNN reported.
The FBI documents were initially meant to remain sealed until 2027. However, the Department of Justice requested a federal judge to lift the sealing order ahead of schedule. According to CNN, historians and journalists have been preparing to comb through the documents in search of new details surrounding King's assassination on April 4, 1968, in Memphis.
The SCLC, which King co-founded in 1957, opposed the release, echoing the King family's concerns that the files emerged from an illegal surveillance effort. The group and the family allege that the FBI monitored King and other civil rights leaders with the intent to "discredit" them and their movement.
In their statement, King's children declared, "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)." They further added, "The intent of the government's COINTELPRO campaign was not only to monitor, but to discredit, dismantle and destroy Dr. King's reputation and the broader American Civil Rights Movement. These actions were not only invasions of privacy, but intentional assaults on the truth -- undermining the dignity and freedoms of private citizens who fought for justice, designed to neutralize those who dared to challenge the status quo."
CNN reported that opposition to King from law enforcement and intelligence agencies only increased after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. As King focused more on economic justice and international peace, including opposition to the Vietnam War, he was increasingly seen as a threat by figures like Hoover.
King was assassinated in Memphis while supporting a strike by sanitation workers, a campaign consistent with his focus on economic rights. James Earl Ray pleaded guilty to the assassination but later recanted, claiming innocence until his death in 1998. Coretta Scott King pushed for a new probe into the murder, leading then-Attorney General Janet Reno in 1998 to order the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department to revisit the case. However, the department found "nothing to disturb the 1969 judicial determination that James Earl Ray murdered Dr. King."
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