On Wednesday (June 4), a federal judge in Washington D.C. signaled that he was open to releasing sensitive documents related to the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. ahead of the scheduled date. President Donald Trump had signed an executive order calling for the release of the files in January, in addition to files related to the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and Senator Robert Kennedy.
U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon stated that he intended to proceed slowly in the matter, prioritizing privacy. “This is delicate stuff,” Judge Leon said. “This is not stuff you use a chainsaw on. You use a scalpel or a laser.” The judge stated that he would direct the National Archives to allow him – and him alone – to see the inventory of all of the files related to Dr. King that they have It’s believed that there are over 60,000 unredacted pages of documents related to the assassination.
Johnny Walker, a lawyer representing the Department of Justice, requested that Judge Leon grant their agents authorization to look through the files first to create a subset of papers the court and the family of Dr. King could approve for release. He stated that they would steer clear of anything damaging in the files. Sumayaa Saleh, a lawyer representing the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, objected citing the Trump Administration’s sloppy handling of the release of files related to President Kennedy. “The government has yet to come forward with any persuasive, compelling, legitimate reason to unseal the files,” she added.
The hearing was called in response to a lawsuit by the SCLC (which Dr. King helped found) and the King family, who have expressed wariness over the release of the files. “Some, perhaps many, of the recordings may be fake. The FBI’s purpose in creating the documents the government seeks to unseal was to misinform the public and irreparably damage our father’s reputation and most importantly destroy the civil rights movement,” wrote Martin Luther King III in a statement.
A federal judge in 1977 had ordered the files to be sealed from the public until 2027. Judge Leon conceded that the hearing is part of “the first few steps in a journey” and that the matter could take up to 2027. But he did ask that both parties keep communicating and if they came to an agreement, he could nudge things along. “We’re going to go slowly,” Leon said. “Little steps.”
Judge Mulls Releasing MLK Assassination Files
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