Donald J. Trump has said that once he is sworn in as president on Monday, he will quickly release records relating to the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, his brother Robert F. Kennedy and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as part of measures to restore confidence in government.
The assassinations, particularly that of the president, who was shot dead in Dallas in November 1963, have been the subject of decades of controversy as well as conspiracy theories. Mr. King was shot and killed in Memphis in April 1968, while Robert F. Kennedy was shot and killed in California that June, shortly after winning California’s Democratic primary. The three deaths shook America in different ways, and historians view each as a turning point in the tumultuous decade.
“As a first step toward restoring transparency and accountability to government, we will also reverse the over-classification of government documents,” Mr. Trump said at a rally on Sunday ahead of his inauguration, adding that documents related to other topics of “great public interest” would also be declassified. “It’s all going to be released, Uncle Sam,” he said.
Mr. Trump’s statement will likely generate particular interest among his supporters, given the fascination he has expressed with certain conspiracies and the fact that he survived an assassination attempt in July when he was shot and wounded while running for president.
