ATLANTA — On his fourth day in office as president, Donald Trump ordered records on the assassinations of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., President John F. Kennedy and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy declassified.
In the executive order issued Thursday Trump said the families of the assassinated figures and the American people “deserve transparency and truth. It is in the national interest to finally release all records related to these assassinations without delay.”
There have been multiple attempts to declassify and publicly disclose the records related to the JFK assassination, including an act of U.S. Congress.
The executive order signed by the president Thursday even references it, the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992.
The legislation required all records related to the former president’s assassination be made public by Oct. 26, 2017, unless records are certified by the president of the United States to present identifiable harm to military defense, intelligence, law enforcement or foreign relations, and that identifying those pieces of information would outweigh public interest in disclosing them.
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For all three assassinations, Trump said that he has “determined that the continued redaction and withholding of information from records pertaining to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy is not consistent with the public interest and the release of these records is long overdue.”
While Congress has not ordered or legislated the release of records for the assassinations for Sen. Kennedy or Atlanta civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr., the president’s executive order says releasing the records that are in federal custody is in the public interest.
The order sets a countdown of sorts for the provisions to take effect, giving various federal agencies and officials 15 days to present a plan to the president for the full and complete release of records relating to the JFK assassination.
For the former president’s brother RFK and for King, the president has given officials 45 days to perform the same duties.
The deadline for the JFK assassination records plan is Feb. 7, while the deadlines for RFK and King are both March 9.
In a statement from the King family, they said:
“Today, our family has learned that President Trump has ordered the declassification of the remaining records pertaining to the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, his brother Robert F. Kennedy, and our father, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
“For us, the assassination of our father is a deeply personal family loss that we have endured over the last 56 years. We hope to be provided the opportunity to review the files as a family prior to its public release.”
“At this time, the King Family is not taking any interviews as they await further information.”
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