Trump Vows Big Before Inauguration, Says 'Will Quickly Release JFK, Robert Kennedy, MLK Assassination Files'
Donald Trump is set to return to the White House on Monday after his inauguration event. He has vowed to make public classified files related to assassination of John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King Jr.
US President-elect Donald Trump on Sunday vowed to de-classify the documents related to the assassination of US President John F Kennedy, Senator Robert Kennedy, and civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.
Trump’s big promise came on the eve of his inauguration at the Capitol where he will be sworn-in as the 47th US President on Monday.
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“In the coming days, we are going to make public remaining records related to the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, his brother Robert Kennedy, as well as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and other topics of great public interest," Trump said at a rally in downtown Washington.
He had promised on his campaign trail that he would release the classified intelligence and law enforcement files on the assassination of President John F Kennedy (JFK) in 1963.
Notably, Trump had made a similar promise during his first term at the office from 2017 to 2021, and in fact, he did release some documents related to JFK’s killing.
However, in the end, he bowed to pressure from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and did not release a significant chunk of documents, keeping them under wraps. He cited national security concerns for the same.
However, Trump did not specify the documents he would release, neither did he promise a blanket declassification. Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy were both assassinated in 1968.
The JFK assassination has been a point of discussion and debate in the United States for long as the killing was attributed to a sole gunman, Lee Harvey Oswald. While the Justice Department and other federal government bodies have maintained that conclusion for decades, the Americans, on the contrary, believe his death was a result of a wider conspiracy, according to the polls.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., chosen by Trump to lead health and human services, is the son of Robert Kennedy and the nephew of President John F. Kennedy (JFK). He has claimed that the CIA was involved in his uncle JFK’s assassination, a claim the agency has dubbed unfounded.
Kennedy Jr. also believes his father was killed by more than one shooter, a view that is in contradiction to the official reports.
Trump will take more than 200 executive actions as he assumes office on Monday, according to his aides, The New York Post reported.
The actions include 50 executive orders which are legally binding, including some relating to border security and domestic energy production.
(With Reuters inputs)
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