JFK, RFK, MLK Assassination Files Set for Release (Full Transcript)

Speaker 1: Now to Washington and the pending release of new documents from the JFK assassination and two others. Americans are one step closer to learning more about three of the biggest assassinations in U.S. history. President Trump has signed an executive order to release all documents related to the killings of John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King Jr. 99% of the JFK documents have been released, but thousands of files remain either partially or fully withheld.

Speaker 2: What remains is about 4,400 documents from a variety of federal agencies, primarily the CIA, that still contain some redactions, ranging from a word to a paragraph to a page to the whole document.

Speaker 1: Experts don't expect any bombshells from the files. Tom Samoluck, who serves on the board of directors at the JFK Library, says he reviewed all classified documents years ago. He tells our station in Boston the records will not reveal any smoking gun. There will be some puzzle pieces that will be put back in that will tell a more robust and rich story. Lee Harvey Oswald was identified as the sole gunman, but conspiracies abound. A former Secret Service agent with Kennedy at the time wrote a memoir in 2023, saying he found a bullet in the back of Kennedy's car but forgot until recently. His account challenges the government's finding that a single bullet hit both Kennedy and Texas Governor John Connolly. As for the MLK assassination, those documents could reveal more about allegations the FBI was complicit in his killing. The Justice Department determined James Earl Ray acted alone, but a congressional investigation found the years-long surveillance on King by FBI agents in order to undermine the civil rights leader was probably a felony. Trump's order gives the relevant officials 15 days to present a plan for releasing those records.