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Since his return to the White House, President Donald Trump is close to signing 100 executive orders. The deluge has put the corporate media, and sometimes Congress, on their heels. Nevertheless, Congress is coming alongside Trump to keep one of his more interesting campaign promises: to declassify records related to the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King Jr.
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., recently announced the formation of a congressional task force whose purpose is to examine declassified material in the public interest.
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., will lead the task force, which will examine the government records that are declassified pursuant to Trump’s Jan. 23 executive order, among other things. Luna explained that the “mission” of the task force is “to ensure these documents are released swiftly and in their entirety, giving the American people the truth they deserve.”
As Luna has repeatedly noted on social media, the task force itself has no declassification authority, which is the exclusive prerogative of the president. Nonetheless, it can support the declassification of government records related to these assassinations by holding government officials accountable for any attempts to obstruct the timely release of these records to the public.
Indeed, in a recent post on X, Luna stated, “If @POTUS’ executive order to declassify these files is obstructed, we won’t hesitate to hold those responsible accountable. Remember: [Attorney General] Pam Bondi is at the DOJ [Department of Justice] now. If Congress votes to hold someone in contempt, she’ll back us.”
While it is true that Congress has no declassification authority over records of the executive branch, this does not mean that Congress has no role to play in the complete declassification and public release of government records related to these assassinations. This is particularly true with respect to the assassination of King.
In 1977, the House of Representatives established the Select Committee on Assassinations , which was tasked with reinvestigating the assassinations of President Kennedy and King. Two years later, the committee released its findings. Albeit couched in highly tentative terms, the committee concluded that both Kennedy and King were assassinated “as a result of a conspiracy.”
Per House rules at the time, all records associated with these investigations were sealed from public access for 50 years—until Jan. 3, 2029. With the passage of the JFK Records Act in 1992, however, the timeline for the public release of the committee’s records related to the Kennedy assassination was superseded and became subject to immediate release with only the most sensitive records being withheld until Oct. 26, 2017.
Although some of these records required declassification by executive agencies prior to public release, the vast majority did not. More importantly, because these were congressional records, the president lacked the authority to release them to the public without the assent of the House of Representatives.
Thus, if Trump intends to declassify and publicly release “all records in the federal government’s possession” pertaining to the assassination of King, he will need the House of Representatives to assent to the release of all its records relating to the committee’s investigation of the assassination in advance of its original Jan. 3, 2029, deadline.
Accordingly, Luna and her colleagues can strike an immediate blow for full government transparency by requesting that House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., instruct the House Clerk to make these records available immediately to the public. Undoubtedly, the House Clerk will determine that some of these records require a declassification review by the president, but that doesn’t mean the public has to wait for declassification to see the rest of the evidence committee investigators relied upon to support their conclusion that King was assassinated “as a result of a conspiracy.”
For example, the Select Committee on Assassinations conducted extensive interviews with individuals who possessed credible, firsthand knowledge of bounties offered on King’s life by various white supremacist organizations, including the White Knights and the Ku Klux Klan. Based on these interviews, as well as extensive interviews with known associates of King’s alleged assassin, James Earl Ray, the committee concluded that the principal motive for the assassination was Ray’s “expectation of monetary gain” from collecting on one of the many bounties.
Since these conclusions were based on witness testimony to the committee rather than the investigative material of the FBI, there would be no reason for these interviews to undergo declassification review prior to public release.
Like with the assassination of JFK and RFK, some have speculated about the involvement of government agents in the assassination of King. Such speculation was encouraged by Ray himself, who always maintained that he was framed for the assassination by a mysterious individual named “Raoul.”
Although the committee did not find Ray’s claims about “Raoul” or the existence of a government conspiracy to kill King to be credible, they did criticize actions taken by the FBI that might have “encouraged” others to engage in violence against King.
Notoriously, the FBI, under the direction of J. Edgar Hoover, engaged in a prolonged campaign to discredit King in the eyes of the public and to undermine the broader civil rights movement he led. To do so, the FBI engaged in round-the-clock surveillance of King, which included wiretaps and recording devices left surreptitiously in his home and hotel rooms, to gain derogatory information that could then be propagated to the public via the FBI’s allies in the mainstream media.
The committee conducted a thorough investigation of the FBI’s campaign against King, including extensive interviews with FBI officials involved in its implementation, concluding it to be “morally reprehensible, illegal, felonious, and unconstitutional.”
In a recent letter to top government officials, Luna explained that the Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets seeks to restore, through complete transparency, public trust in government agencies that have, in recent years, been “weaponized” by public officials against their political opponents.
By advocating for the release—and complete declassification, where necessary—of all the records associated with the committee’s investigation into King’s assassination, Luna and her colleagues will take a crucial first step toward completing the historical record. But, perhaps more importantly, they will also illuminate the fact that the unelected leaders of our intelligence agencies and federal law enforcement have a long history of “weaponizing” these institutions against their political opponents, whether they be private citizens, like King, or elected officials, like Trump.
We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal.
The post Key to Uncovering Truth About MLK Assassination Lies With Congress appeared first on The Daily Signal.
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