Trump signs executive order to declassify JFK, RFK, and MLK assassination files
US President Donald Trump is applauded after delivering his inaugural address in the Rotunda of the Capitol building in Washington, DC, on January 20, 2025. PHOTO: AFP
President Donald Trump has signed an executive order mandating the full declassification of remaining files related to the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Senator Robert F.
Kennedy, and civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. The announcement came Thursday at the White House, fulfilling a long-standing promise by Trump to release these historic records.
“A lot of people have been waiting for this for decades,” the president said during the signing ceremony, emphasizing the importance of transparency. Trump also presented the pen he used to sign the order to Robert F. Kennedy Jr., son of the late Senator Kennedy and Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services.
This move follows a partial release of JFK assassination records in 2022. According to the National Archives and Records Administration, 97% of the approximately 5 million documents in its collection were already public, but thousands remained classified or partially redacted.
In 1992, Congress passed legislation requiring all assassination records to be disclosed by 2017, but not all files were released during Trump’s first term. Among the withheld records were 3,000 entirely unreleased documents and 30,000 previously released with redactions.
The declassification order is expected to shed more light on the high-profile assassinations that shaped American history. Transparency advocates and historians have long pushed for full disclosure, hoping these records will provide new insights.