US President Donald Trump issued an executive order on Thursday, Announcement of these documents Related to the assassination of the former US President John F. Kennedy (JFK)His younger brother, Senator Robert F. Kennedy (RFK) and civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. (MLK) will be declassified.

According to the National Archives and Records Administration, 99% of records related to JFK’s death have already been published, with fewer than 4,700 documents remaining.

Here’s what we know:

What does Trump’s declassification order say?

Thursday’s executive order stipulates that the Director of National Intelligence and the Attorney General must, within 15 days, coordinate with other government officials to submit a joint memorandum to Trump. Plan for release The “complete and complete” collection of records about the death of JFK.

He adds that within 45 days, the same group of government officials will review records related to the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and MLK and present Trump with a plan for their “full and complete release.”

The order states that families and the American public “deserve transparency and truth.”

“It is in the national interest that all records relating to these assassinations are finally released without delay.”

How were JFK, RFK and MLK assassinated?

John F. Kennedy

Democrat John Kennedy was president from January 1961 until November 22, 1963, when he was shot while riding his motorcade through Dallas, Texas.

He was accompanied by his wife, Jacqueline Kennedy, and Texas Governor John Connally and his wife, Nelly Connally. Governor Connally was also injured in the attack.

JFK was 46 years old at the time of his death. His deputy, Lyndon Johnson, took charge and ordered an investigation by a committee headed by Chief Justice Earl Warren.

The Warren Commission concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald, a former Marine activist who converted to communism, was responsible for the killing of JFK. They considered that Oswald, who was 24 at the time, was acting alone. Oswald was shot while being transported from police headquarters to the county jail by Dallas nightclub owner Jack Ruby, two days after JFK’s death.

Robert F. Kennedy

JFK’s brother and Democratic New York Senator, Robert Kennedy, was shot and killed nearly five years later on June 5, 1968, in Los Angeles.

He had announced his candidacy for the presidential elections in 1968. After winning the presidential primary elections for the Democratic Party in California, he was meeting with his supporters at the Ambassador Hotel.

This is where 24-year-old Palestinian Jordanian Sirhan Sirhan shot JFK, who was taken to Good Samaritan Hospital where he died of his wounds. Sirhan, now 80, is serving a life sentence at Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego County, California.

Martin Luther King Jr

MLK, a prominent civil rights activist and political philosopher, was shot to death while standing on the balcony of his second-floor room at the Lorraine Hotel in Memphis, Tennessee on April 4, 1968. He was 39 years old at the time of his death. death.

MLK was transported to St. Joseph Hospital where he died from his injuries.

In 1969, 40-year-old James Earl Ray, a segregationist fugitive since his escape from a Missouri prison in 1967 where he was serving a 20-year sentence for robbery in the 1950s, confessed to killing Martin Luther King. He was arrested by Scotland Yard detectives in London. According to the National Archives, the FBI concluded that Ray was a “racially motivated killer.”

Ray was sentenced to 99 years in prison at Brushy Mountain Prison in Petrose, Tennessee by the Shelby County Criminal Court and died 29 years into his sentence in 1998 due to health complications.

How many documents about the assassinations have already been published?

The US Congress passed a law in 1992 requiring the release of files related to the assassination of John Kennedy within 25 years.

Since the law was passed, nearly 320,000 documents have been reviewed, 99 percent of which have been published, according to the National Archives and Records Administration.

The deadline by which all documents were supposed to be released was 2017, during Trump’s first term. Trump released nearly 2,800 other documents But it detained hundreds more who were awaiting review, under pressure from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

In 2023, President Joe Biden has released about 17,000 More documents, leaving 4,684 documents still partially or fully withheld related to JFK’s death.

What conspiracy theories have emerged about the assassinations?

All three assassinations, especially that of JFK, were shrouded in mystery because the CIA and FBI kept many classified documents, sparking conspiracy theories.

The American public, government officials, and even some family members of the deceased leaders have questioned the final conclusions of the investigations into these deaths. Some believe that the accused killers did not act alone, and that important details about the murders were withheld.

“I’m just Patsy!” Oswald said in a video recorded after his arrest for the JFK assassination at Dallas police headquarters. Many read this as Oswald himself saying that he was a scapegoat, and did not act alone.

The Warren Commission concluded that a single 6.5 mm bullet killed JFK and wounded Governor Connally. Many doubt this finding and consider it unbelievable that a bullet would have penetrated the bodies of two adult men. Critics also question the bullet’s trajectory.

Footage of the assassination filmed by clothing manufacturer Abraham Zapruder shows a gruesome frame of JFK’s head exploding as a second bullet hits his skull. For years, this portion of the film was not released to the public until ABC News aired it in 1975.

The fact that Oswald was killed shortly after his arrest, and thus no trial took place, has also fueled conspiracy theories.

Robert F. Kennedy JrTrump’s health secretary and son of Robert Kennedy said in 2023 that there was “overwhelming” evidence of CIA involvement in the killing of his uncle, JFK.

He said there was also “very convincing” but “circumstantial” evidence of CIA involvement in his father’s murder.

After meeting Sirhan in prison, Kennedy Jr. said: “I was disturbed that the wrong person might be convicted of killing my father. My father was the main law enforcement officer in this country. “I think it would have bothered him if someone was put in prison for a crime they didn’t commit,” he was quoted as saying by The Washington Post in 2018.

MLK’s family does not believe Ray killed him, and has said they believe his killing was the result of an FBI plot. Ray also did not stand trial because he pleaded guilty to avoid the death penalty.

“It hurts my heart that James Earl Ray had to spend his life in prison paying for things he didn’t do,” Bernice King, the youngest of MLK’s four children, said according to The Washington Post in 2018.

MLK’s family filed a wrongful death lawsuit titled “King Family v Jowers and Other Unknown Conspirators” in 1999. Loyd Jowers was the owner of a restaurant near the Lorraine Hotel in Memphis. In 1993, Gores told ABC News that he was paid $100,000 by alleged Memphis mobster Frank Liberto to arrange the assassination of MLK.

A jury in Memphis ruled that Gores and “conspirators” including “government agencies” were responsible for the killing. The family said they were satisfied with this ruling. “After today, we don’t want questions like: ‘Do you think James Earl Ray killed your father?'” MLK’s son, Dexter, said after the sentencing. I’ve been hearing that all my life. No, I don’t want to, and that’s the end of it.”