Trump orders release of classified files on assassinations of JFK, RFK and MLK

US President Donald Trump has ordered the release of all the remaining classified documents about the 1963 assassination of former President John F Kennedy, which has been the source of conspiracy theories for decades.

The executive order signed by Trump on Thursday also aims to declassify the remaining files relating to the assassinations of Robert F Kennedy — JFK's younger brother — and the civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.

"This is a big one. A lot of people have been waiting for this for years, for decades," Trump said as he signed the order at the White House. "And everything will be revealed."

The order directs the director of national intelligence and the attorney general to develop a plan within 15 days to release the JFK records, and within 45 days for the other cases.

Trump had promised during his re-election campaign to make public the last batches of still-classified documents surrounding JFK's assassination in Dallas, Texas. He made a similar pledge during his first term but ultimately heeded appeals from the CIA and FBI to withhold some documents on national security grounds.

"Their families and the American people deserve transparency and truth. It is in the national interest to finally release all records related to these assassinations without delay," the executive order stated.

Only a few thousand of the millions of governmental records related to the assassination of JFK have yet to be fully declassified. And while many who have studied what has been released so far say the public shouldn’t expect any major revelations, there is still an intense interest in details related to the assassination and the events surrounding it.

JFK was fatally shot by US Marine veteran Lee Harvey Oswald on 22 November 1963 while in a motorcade in downtown Dallas. The assassination has transfixed people for decades, with surveys showing that the majority of US citizens doubt the official explanations for the killing and do not believe that Oswald acted alone.

King and Robert F Kennedy were assassinated within two months of each other in 1968.

The former was shot dead on 4 April 1968 outside a motel in Memphis, Tennessee, by the white nationalist James Earl Ray, while the latter — then a New York senator — was fatally shot on 5 June that year at a Los Angeles hotel after giving a victory speech for winning California’s Democratic presidential primary.

Robert F Kennedy Jr — the son of Robert F Kennedy, nephew of JFK and Trump’s nominee for US health secretary — has repeatedly questioned the official narratives about the assassinations of his uncle and his father and claimed that the CIA was involved in both killings.

During the signing ceremony at the White House on Thursday, Trump handed the pen used to sign the order to an aide and directed it to be given to RFK Jr.

Trump has signed a slew of executive orders in his first few days in office: overturning dozens of former President Joe Biden's policies, granting pardons to people charged in connection with the 6 January 2021 attack on the US Capitol, and kicking off a broad crackdown on immigration.

On Thursday, a federal judge in Seattle temporarily blocked Trump’s order denying so-called birthright citizenship to children born in the US without at least one US citizen or permanent resident parent. During the first hearing in a multi-state effort challenging the order, US District Judge John Coughenour described it as "blatantly unconstitutional".