The disclosure of secrets by President Donald Trump continues with the release of about 10,000 pages related to the 1968 murder of Senator Robert F. Kennedy.
Kennedy was shot dead on June 5, 1968, at the Ambassador Hotel, Los Angeles. He had just given a speech to celebrate his victory in California’s Democratic primary presidential election. Sirhan Sirhan was convicted of first-degree murder. He is currently serving a life sentence in prison.
There were also pictures of notes written by the gunman.
The district director for the Internal Revenue Service, Los Angeles, wrote “RFK should be disposed of like his brother” on the envelope’s outside.
The National Archives and Records Administration published 229 files that contained the pages on its website. The National Archives and Records Administration posted 229 files containing the pages to its public website.
Tulsi Gabrield, director of national Intelligence, stated that nearly 60 years after JFK’s assassination, “the American public will have the opportunity, for the very first time, to review the federal investigation, thanks to President Trump.”
Gabbard said that the release of the documents sheds a “long-overdue spotlight on the truth.”
This release comes one month after the disclosure of unredacted files relating to the 1963 assassination attempt on President John F. Kennedy. These documents provided readers with more information about covert U.S. military operations during the Cold War in other countries, but they did not lend credibility to conspiracy theories that have been circulating for years about who murdered JFK.
Trump, who is a Republican and a proponent of transparency, has pushed for the release of documents relating to high-profile investigations and assassinations. He’s been suspicious of government intelligence agencies for many years. His administration’s decision to release previously hidden documents opens up the possibility of further public scrutiny.
Trump signed an Executive Order in January calling on the release of government documents related to Robert F. Kennedy’s and Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassinations, which occurred within two months of one another.
Since the 1960s, lawyers for Kennedy’s murderer have claimed that Sirhan is unlikely to commit another crime or to pose a threat to society. In 2021, however, a parole panel deemed Sirhan eligible for release. But Gov. Gavin Newsom, in 2022, rejected the decision and kept him in prison. In 2023, another panel denied his release because he did not have any insight as to what led him to shoot Kennedy.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. – the son of New York Senator Robert F. Kennedy, who is now the Secretary of Health and Human Services – praised Trump and Gabbard’s “courage” in releasing the documents and their “dogged effort” to do so.
In a statement, the Health Secretary said that “lifting the veil” on the RFK documents was a necessary step towards restoring trust in the American government.
