US releases FBI files on civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr

US President Donald Trump has released files related to the 1968 assassination of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr despite opposition from most of his family reported news agency ANIMore than 6000 documents related to the assassination totalling nearly a quartermillion pages were posted to the website of the National Archives late Monday afternoon in what the administration hailed as a triumph of transparency the ANI reportedThese do not include FBI wiretap recordings of King and other materials that remain under court seal until 2027 according to experts cited by the US news outletTrump administration officials said the King assassination documents include notes on the leads pursued by investigators interviews with people who knew his killer James Earl Ray and previously unreleased details of interactions with foreign intelligence services during the manhunt for RayRay pleaded guilty to Kings murder but later renounced that plea and maintained his innocence until his death in 1998An estimated 200000 pages of records released on Monday had been under a courtimposed seal since 1977 when the FBI first gathered the records and turned them over to the National Archives and Records AdministrationKing had a welldocumented history of extramarital relationships reported ANIKings surviving children Martin III and Bernice argued in a statement on Monday that their father had been relentlessly targeted by an invasive predatory and deeply disturbing disinformation and surveillance campaign The children beseeched researchers and the general public to view all of the material from the governments files in the context of their fathers contributions to American societyIn a press release the Trump administration quoted Alveda King Kings niece and a highprofile supporter of Trump who praised the government for providing transparency The declassification and release of these documents are a historic step towards the truth that the American people deserve she said as cited in the NYTIn another statement the Martin Luther King jr Centre of which Bernince King is CEO said King Center Regarding the Declassification and Release of FBI Files on the Assassination of Rev Dr Martin Luther King Jr httpsthekingcenterorgstatementfromthekingcenterregardingthedeclassification Excerpt from Statement And so as we prepare for a heightened focus on Dr King we underscore the work central to Dr Kings dream engaging Kingian Nonviolence which The King Center has rebranded as Nonviolence365 for the strategic eradication of the Triple Evils of racism poverty and militarism We invite the global citizenry to join us in working to rid our World House of these interconnected debilitating conundrums This righteous work should be our collective response to renewed attention on the assassination of a great purveyor of true peaceDirector of National Intelligence Avril Haines said that the documents were released to fulfil the action Trump called for in a January executive orderWith inputs from ANI