Trump Administration releases 240,000 pages of FBI records on MLK Jr. despite family objections

The Trump administration has released over 240,000 pages of long-sealed FBI surveillance records related to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., despite objections from his family and the civil rights group he once led.

The documents, compiled under J. Edgar Hoover’s tenure and locked under court seal since 1977, are now publicly accessible through the National Archives.

The move, part of a broader declassification effort that also included files related to the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and Senator Robert F. Kennedy, was praised by some as a step toward transparency. Others, however, criticized the release as politically motivated and deeply insensitive.

The FBI’s surveillance campaign against King is well-documented. The newly released records detail the Bureau’s intense scrutiny of King’s activities, including wiretaps, hotel room bugging, and covert informants, especially during his shift toward anti-war and anti-poverty activism in the years leading to his 1968 assassination.

In a joint statement, King’s surviving children, Martin Luther King III, 67, and Bernice King, 62, urged the public to view the documents in “full historical context.”

They acknowledged the public fascination with their father’s death but emphasized the deeply personal pain the release rekindles.

“We ask those who engage with the release of these files to do so with empathy, restraint, and respect for our family’s continuing grief,” they said.

The family reiterated its long-standing belief that James Earl Ray, the man convicted of King’s murder, was not solely responsible, if at all.

A 1999 civil suit concluded that King was the victim of a broader conspiracy, a view the family still supports.

The Office of Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard described the release as “unprecedented” and credited former President Donald Trump for pushing the issue. Alveda King, King’s niece and a Trump ally, praised the decision, calling it “transparency in action.”

But critics, including Rev. Al Sharpton, accused Trump of using the disclosure as a distraction from controversy surrounding the Epstein case.

The King Center, led by Bernice King, condemned the timing as “ill-timed and unfortunate,” arguing it detracts from urgent social justice work.

Though originally scheduled for release in 2027, the Justice Department requested an early lift on the seal. Scholars and historians now have access to a vast new trove of material that may reshape understanding of the Civil Rights Movement and the forces that sought to suppress it.