President Donald Trump on Thursday signed an executive order to declassify files on the assassinations of former President John F. Kennedy, his brother Robert F. Kennedy and civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr.
Trump had promised to release the previously-classified documents during his 2024 campaign following decades of speculation and conspiracy theories about the killings.
‘Everything will be revealed,’ Trump told reporters as he signed the order in the Oval Office of the White House.
During his first administration, Trump had promised to release all the files related to John F. Kennedy, but an undisclosed amount of material remains under wraps more than six decades after Kennedy was killed Nov. 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas. The primary suspect, Lee Harvey Oswald, was killed two days later by Jack Ruby.
After appeals from the CIA and FBI, Trump blocked the release of hundreds of records. Trump said at the time the potential harm to U.S. national security, law enforcement or foreign affairs is ‘of such gravity that it outweighs the public interest in immediate disclosure.’
‘I have now 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,’ Trump’s order states. ‘And although no Act of Congress directs the release of information pertaining to the assassinations of Senator Robert F. Kennedy and the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., I have determined that the release of all records in the Federal Government’s possession pertaining to each of those assassinations is also in the public interest.’
U.S. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., praised the declassification of the JFK files.
‘Our government, led by corrupt bureaucrats, has hidden this information from the American people for far too long. Americans deserve to know the truth, whether it makes the government look good or not,’ she said in a statement. ‘As part of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, I want to continue to deliver transparency to Americans. The truth belongs to the people, and we won’t rest until they have it.’
Trump’s promise to also release outstanding documents related to King and former U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy leaves questions as to how the president-elect will speed up the releases.
Robert F. Kennedy, then a Senator from New York, was on the presidential campaign trail as a Democratic candidate when he was fatally shot on June 5, 1968 by Sirhan Sirhan, a Palestinian Christian, at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles shortly after securing his party’s nomination.
Under the Martin Luther King Jr. Records Collection Act, the remaining files pertaining to King are not due for release until 2027. King was fatally shot by James Earl Ray at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968.
The deaths of King and John F. Kennedy have spawned conspiracy theories over the years, many of which allege government involvement or cover-ups.
Fox News Digital’s Stephen Sorace contributed to this report.