The Families Of JFK & MLK Aren’t Thrilled About President Trump’s Order Declassifying Records Related To Assassination

Why not declassify them at this point? It's been over 50 years since the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Kennedy was killed in Dallas in 1963, while King passed away in Memphis in 1968. And over the past half of a century, there have been plenty of conspiracy theories that have arisen over the deaths of both men. I'm not going to get into them all here, mainly because I could talk for hours about conspiracy theories and what I really think happened in both cases, but suffice it to say, there are a lot of people who don't believe the official narratives of JFK being shot by Lee Harvey Oswald for reasons that still aren't entirely clear, and MLK being killed by James Earl Ray, with both assassins supposedly acting alone. In fact, back in 1994, a Memphis man named Loyd Jowers claimed that he was part of the conspiracy to kill MLK and that Ray was a scapegoat. King's family brought a largely symbolic civil suit against Jowers in an effort to uncover the truth about the assassination, and in the trial a jury found that King was killed as part of a conspiracy that involved Jowers and other US agents, awarding the family the $100 in damages they had requested. The King family has publicly stated that they believe the government was involved in MLK's assassination, pointing towards a Memphis police officer as the real assassin. Interest in these cases has remained strong for the past 50 years, though many of the records related to both assassinations have remained classified for what previous presidents have called "national security concerns." But during his 2024 campaign, President Donald Trump promised to release all records relating to not only JFK's assassination, but the killings of his brother, Robert F. Kennedy, and MLK, claiming that enough time had passed that there were no real national security concerns that would require them to remain classified. And yesterday, Trump took the first step towards declassifying those records. In an executive order, the president ordered the Director of National Intelligence and the Attorney General to put a plan together for "the full and complete release of records" related to the JFK assassination within 15 days, and a plan for the RFK and MLK records within 45 days. https://twitter.com/TrumpWarRoom/status/1882532103809826911 According to the executive order: "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.  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." Of course putting a plan together doesn't mean that the records will be released immediately, but with Trump now ordering that there's no reason to keep them classified, it sounds like we may eventually see what's been hidden in those records for over 50 years. Now, am I expecting there to be some bombshell or proof of a conspiracy? Not really. (I think any records of those would have been destroyed a long time ago so the government could cover its ass and make sure they never came out). But a lot of people are excited to finally get to see these long-classified documents. The families of JFK and MLK, though, sound less than thrilled. In a statement after the announcement yesterday, the only surviving grandson of JFK, called the release of the records after all this time "a political prop." https://twitter.com/JBKSchlossberg/status/1882546649429622978 And the family of MLK also released a statement expressing their concerns with the release of the records, adding that they hope they're given a chance to review them for themselves before they're made public: https://twitter.com/TheKingCenter/status/1882614784631492949 Of course the fact that they're concerned about the release of the documents has itself sparked a number of conspiracy theories on social media, but I can also understand being nervous about what might come out in the documents. Either way, I expect it to be a massive letdown whenever we do finally get to see them.