In keeping with President Donald Trump’s long-standing campaign pledge to maximise transparency surrounding these historic events, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has announced the public release of previously classified records pertaining to the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy (JFK), Senator Robert F. Kennedy (RFK), and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (MLK).
By making all government information pertaining to these assassinations publicly available, the release is a part of a larger effort, formalised by Executive Order 14176, to restore public confidence in the Intelligence Community and federal agencies.
Over 10,000 pages of papers particularly pertaining to the RFK assassination were made public by Gabbard’s office on April 18, 2025. More files on MLK and other JFK items are expected to be made public in the weeks that follow.
With only sensitive personal data like Social Security and Tax Identification numbers redacted, the recently made accessible RFK files—which had been kept at the National Archives for decades—were digitised and made available online.
The whole federal investigative records of RFK’s assassination, which took place on June 5, 1968, during his presidential campaign, are now available to the public for the first time.
The Director’s Initiatives Group (DIG), a task team Gabbard formed to supervise the scanning, digitisation, and assessment of tens of thousands of pages from FBI and CIA data, is spearheading the declassification operation.
These documents had never before been digitised or made public, and over 100 employees have been working diligently to process them. According to Gabbard, the recently made public documents raise more issues and offer a more thorough picture of the events and investigations surrounding the assassinations, even though they do not contain conclusive evidence in favour of conspiracy theories.
The public now has access to some 80,000 pages of previously classified documents, many of which have not been redacted, making the release of JFK records noteworthy as well.
These documents describe the assassination of President Kennedy in Dallas on November 22, 1963, and the subsequent examination of Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby. As part of the administration’s dedication to openness, the National Archives has made these records available both online and in person.
“This historic release of assassination records is meant to fulfil President Trump’s promise of maximum transparency and to enable the American people to independently review the historical record,” Gabbard stressed in her statement.
Members of the Kennedy family have praised the project, which is viewed as a significant step in answering long-standing public enquiries concerning these crucial periods in American history.
