Overview

• President Trump ordered the early release of files scheduled to remain sealed until 2027 as part of a broader effort to declassify high-profile assassination archives.
• The records detail J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI wiretaps of King’s phones, bugs in his hotel rooms and an informant network aimed at discrediting him.
• The files were sent to the National Archives under court seal in 1977 and were unsealed for public review on July 21 and 22.
• Martin Luther King’s children denounced the records as evidence of a “deeply disturbing disinformation and surveillance campaign” and urged that they be studied with respect.
• Historians and journalists reviewing the documents report little fresh evidence on King’s 1968 murder or James Earl Ray’s role.