By Gram Slattery
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President-elect Donald Trump said on Sunday he would release classified documents related to the assassinations of U.S. President John F. Kennedy, Senator Robert Kennedy and civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. in the coming days.
Trump, who returns to the White House on Monday, promised on the campaign trail to release classified intelligence and law enforcement files on the 1963 assassination of JFK, as the 35th U.S. president is widely known.
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He had made a similar promise during his 2017 to 2021 term, and he actually released some documents related to the 1963 JFK murder. But he ultimately caved to pressure from the Central Intelligence Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation , and kept much of the documents secret, citing national security concerns.
“In the coming days, we will release the latest documents related to the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, his brother Robert Kennedy, as well as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and other matters of great public interest.” , Trump said. said at a rally in downtown Washington, the day before he took office for a second non-consecutive term.
Trump did not specify which documents would be released and he did not promise blanket declassification. Both King and Robert Kennedy were assassinated in 1968.
The assassination of JFK, in particular, exerts an enduring fascination in the United States. The killing was attributed to a single shooter, Lee Harvey Oswald, and the Justice Department and other federal government agencies have reaffirmed that conclusion in the decades since. But polls show many Americans believe his death was the result of a broader conspiracy.
Trump’s Health and Human Services Secretary-designate, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Robert Kennedy’s son and JFK’s nephew, said he believed the CIA was involved in his uncle’s death, an allegation that the agency called it baseless.
Kennedy Jr. also said he believed his father was killed by several gunmen, a claim that contradicts official accounts.
(Reporting by Gram Slattery, editing by Ross Colvin and Howard Goller)
