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   XPost: sac.politics, talk.politics.guns   
   From: yourdime@outlook.com   
      
   Despite protests from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s family and the civil   
   rights group he once led, the Trump administration has made public records   
   of the FBI's surveillance of the slain civil rights icon.   
      
   Why it matters: The move pits President Trump's determination to release   
   documents the government has kept secret for more than a half-century   
   against the family's lingering pain over how J. Edgar Hoover's FBI spied   
   on King and tried to intimidate and humiliate him.   
      
   It comes amid growing calls for Trump to release the Epstein files after   
   his administration concluded that there is no evidence to suggest the   
   disgraced financier was murdered or kept a "client list."   
   King's surviving daughter, Bernice King, referenced this in a post to X   
   late Monday of a photo of her father with the comment: "Now, do the   
   Epstein files."   
   Driving the news: Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard   
   released on Monday over 230,000 pages of documents related to the 1968   
   assassination of MLK, the agency announced.   
      
   In January, Trump ordered the release of all records the U.S. government   
   still holds about King's assassination, as well as the assassinations of   
   President Kennedy (1963) and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy (1968).   
   The newly released MLK files had never been digitized and had spent   
   decades "gathering dust in federal archives," the agency said.   
   Zoom in: The documents detail the FBI's investigation into MLK's   
   assassination — including case leads, internal memos tracking progress,   
   and records about James Earl Ray's former cellmate, who claimed Ray spoke   
   of a possible assassination plot.   
      
   The release also includes evidence from a Canadian police department, and   
   never-before-seen CIA records that outline overseas intelligence on the   
   international hunt for Ray, the prime suspect in the assassination.   
   What they're saying: "The American people deserve answers decades after   
   the horrific assassination of one of our nation's great leaders," Attorney   
   General Pam Bondi said after the release.   
      
   "The Department of Justice is proud to partner with Director Gabbard and   
   the ODNI at President Trump's direction for this latest disclosure."   
   The new documents will be uploaded alongside the previously released files   
   at archives.gov/mlk to ensure all MLK assassination documents can be found   
   in a centralized location, the ODNI said.   
   Yes, but: King's two surviving adult children, in a statement, asked that   
   "those who engage with the release of these files to do so with empathy,   
   restraint, and respect for our family's continuing grief."   
      
   Martin Luther King III and Bernice A. King had wanted an "advanced   
   viewing" of the documents, and the ODNI said members of the King family   
   were provided an opportunity to review the files two weeks before the   
   release.   
   "During our father's lifetime, he was relentlessly targeted by an   
   invasive, predatory, and deeply disturbing disinformation and surveillance   
   campaign orchestrated by J. Edgar Hoover through the Federal Bureau of   
   Investigation," the Kings said.   
   "While we support transparency and historical accountability, we object to   
   any attacks on our father's legacy or attempts to weaponize it to spread   
   falsehoods."   
   Flashback: King's assassination at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis has long   
   fueled conspiracy theories about potential government involvement,   
   especially because of the FBI's hostility toward him.   
      
   In 1969, Ray, a career criminal, pleaded guilty to shooting King but later   
   recanted his confession, saying he was part of a larger conspiracy.   
   Allegations of government complicity have persisted for decades, with   
   civil rights leaders, investigative authors and Ray's attorneys citing the   
   FBI, Memphis police, and Missouri State Penitentiary — from which Ray   
   escaped a year before the killing — as potential conspirators.   
   Between the lines: The promise of complete disclosure alarmed the King   
   family, who were hurt in 2019 by the release of FBI files that alleged   
   sordid details about King's sex life, a family friend said.   
      
   King's pursuit of civil rights through nonviolence is his enduring legacy.   
   But as his work unfolded in the 1960s, Hoover and others in the U.S.   
   government sought to prevent the rise of what they feared would be a Black   
   "messiah" who could unify African Americans.   
      
   Congress formally recognized King's iconic status by approving a federal   
   holiday in his honor more than 15 years after he was killed in Memphis.   
   In the following decades, his legacy drew bipartisan admiration. More   
   recently, however, far-right commentators such as Charlie Kirk, a Trump   
   ally, began criticizing King.   
      
   https://www.axios.com/2025/07/21/martin-luther-king-jr-files-fbi-trump   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)