President Donald Trump has signed an executive order to declassify files related to major 20th-Century assassinations, promising "transparency." But at least one family member of John F. Kennedy thinks it's all just theater.
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00:00President Donald Trump has signed an executive order to declassify files related to major
00:0520th century assassinations, promising transparency. But at least one family member of John F.
00:10Kennedy thinks it's all just theater. Trump signed the order to make files public related
00:15to the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King
00:18Jr. on January 23rd, and it read, in part,
00:22Their families and the American people deserve transparency and truth.
00:25That's a big one, huh? A lot of people are waiting for this for a long — for years.
00:31But one of JFK's grandsons, Jack Schlossberg, says he's not interested in being part of
00:35what he sees as a publicity stunt, writing on X that Trump is
00:39"...no hero for overseeing the release of the documents."
00:42He added,
00:43"...declassification is using JFK as a political prop when he's not here to punch back."
00:47King's family also issued a reaction to the plan to declassify the records, writing in
00:52a statement on X from the King Center,
00:53"...for us, the assassination of our father is a deeply personal family loss that we have
00:57endured over the last 56 years. We hope to be provided the opportunity to review the
01:02files as a family prior to its release."
01:05In his post, Schlossberg also said that the truth of his grandfather's assassination is,
01:09quote,
01:10"...a lot sadder than the myth," stating that it wasn't part of a broad conspiracy.
01:13JFK's 1963 assassination in Dallas, of course, has long been the subject of conspiracy theories,
01:20with many doubting that JFK's assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, killed the then-president on
01:24his own.
01:25The theories became so mainstream that there was even a blockbuster, Oscar-winning 1991
01:29movie JFK that posited Oswald could not have acted alone.
01:33"'Someday, somewhere, someone may find out the damn truth. We better.'"
01:38The 1968 assassination of Robert F. Kennedy by Sirhan Sirhan at the Ambassador Hotel in
01:43Los Angeles has given rise to conspiracy theories of its own, including that there was a second
01:48gunman and a Manchurian candidate scenario. RFK was running for president at the time
01:53of his death.
01:54Most of the theories surrounding the assassination of King, also in 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee,
01:59by James Earl Ray, posit that the U.S. government was somehow involved. And it's undeniably
02:04true the FBI engaged in what APM Reports called an extensive program of surveillance and harassment
02:09against King for years.
02:11There are theories about CIA and FBI involvement in all three assassinations, in fact, which
02:16may play some role in Trump's apparent fascination with publicizing federal records about them.
02:21This isn't the first time he's done this, even. Back in 2017, not too long after the
02:25start of his first term, Trump ordered the release of a large number of documents related
02:29to JFK's assassination. But some were kept under wraps due to agency concerns over national
02:34security.
02:35In 2022, then-President Joe Biden released even more of the documents, though some were
02:39still withheld.
02:40Of course, it bears mentioning that a prominent member of the Kennedy family, Robert F. Kennedy
02:44Jr., is set to be a key part of the Trump administration. The Senate confirmation hearing
02:49for RFK Jr. to head up the Department of Health and Human Services is set for January 29th.
02:54According to The Hill, RFK Jr. praised his boss-to-be's decision to release files on
02:58his father and uncle's assassinations, saying of Trump,
03:01"'He's keeping his promise to have the government tell the truth to the American people about
03:05everything.'"
03:06You can also count RFK Jr. among those who think the CIA was involved in JFK's death.
03:11Yeah, it was a plot. It was a conspiracy. There were multiple people involved."
03:17The Kennedy family has made clear, though, that RFK Jr. doesn't speak for them. In October
03:222023, when RFK Jr. was still running for president as an independent candidate, four of his siblings
03:27released a statement that read, in part,
03:29"'Bobby might share the same name as our father, but he does not share the same values, vision,
03:33or judgment.'"