Trump Moves to Expose MLK Files — Critics Warn of Smear Campaign

By Lauren Burke
NNPA
https://nnpa.org/

On January 23, three days into his second term, President Donald Trump signed Executive Order 14176, titled Declassification of Records Concerning the Assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, and the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Since then, only the records related to the November 22, 1963, assassination of President John F. Kennedy have been made public. There had been year-long debates about whether the records should be released. The Kennedy records were deemed underwhelming by many who examined them—some of whom subscribe to the six-decades-long conspiracy theory that Lee Harvey Oswald was not the lone assassin. But the long-classified documents on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. may spark a different set of issues.

The civil rights icon’s personal life is likely to be scrutinized when the documents are released.

The files, compiled between the late 1950s and Dr. King’s assassination in 1968, are believed to include extensive surveillance records, wiretaps, and psychological profiles created during the height of the FBI and CIA’s covert monitoring of domestic activists under their COINTELPRO program. Although the January 2025 executive order states, in part, that “the federal government has not released to the public all of its records related to those events. Their families and the American people deserve transparency and truth,” some believe the release of these documents will damage Dr. King’s public reputation.

Though Trump stated that transparency was the motivation behind the executive order, the King family asserted on January 24—just one day after the order was signed—that the real goal was character assassination.

“The assassination of our father is a deeply personal family loss that we have endured over the last 56 years. We hope to be provided the opportunity to review the files as a family prior to their public release,” the family said in an Instagram post on Jan. 24.

They believe the right wing wants to smear Dr. King—and that one way to do so is by releasing damaging claims under the guise of transparency.

“If there are assassination records, release those. But smears are not assassination records,” another message on Instagram read.

Reports suggest the files may include allegations of infidelity, associations with individuals once suspected of Communist ties, and efforts by intelligence agencies to destabilize King’s influence through covert means. Scholars warn that, without context, such revelations could be easily misinterpreted or manipulated.

Virgie Hoban, a historian at Georgetown University, explained in 2021: “The intelligence community of the 1960s was deeply invested in discrediting King. These files may say more about Hoover’s FBI than about King himself.”

Teressa Raiford, a civil rights activist, has pointed out that the FBI “understood that the civil rights movement was winning people’s hearts and minds through the circulation of photographs and videos of nonviolent, peaceful protests,” adding that King’s image is so vital to the movement that safeguarding it is essential.