Michael Hernandez
January 24, 2025•Update: January 24, 2025
WASHINGTON
US President Donald Trump ordered Thursday that all government records related to the assassinations of former President John F. Kennedy (JFK), Sen. Robert F. Kennedy (RFK) and civil rights icon Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. be declassified "without delay."
"That's a big one, huh? A lot of people have been waiting for this one for years, for decades," Trump remarked as he signed the order in the Oval Office. "Everything will be revealed."
Trump directed an aide to ensure that the pen he signed the order with be given to Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., a former Independent political rival who dropped out of the 2024 presidential race and backed Trump and who has now been selected to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.
Trump's order says he has determined that the release of the government documents pertaining to the men's killings, all of which occurred more than 60 years ago, is "in the public interest."
A 1992 law ordered the release of all files pertaining to the killing of JFK by 2017 but allowed presidents to forestall their public dissemination if they certified that doing so would have created "an identifiable harm to the military defense, intelligence operations, law enforcement, or conduct of foreign relations" that outweighed the public interest.
Trump in his first term, and then former President Joe Biden throughout his time in office, consistently postponed their release.
But Trump said in his order that the files should be released and ordered his director of national intelligence and attorney general in coordination with White House officials to present a plan within 15 days "for the full and complete release of records relating to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy."
The officials are separately given 45 days to present a plan to release files related to the killings of King, Jr. and RFK.
