Trump executive order declassifies JFK, RFK, Martin Luther King Jr. assassination files

President Donald Trump signed an executive order at the White House on Thursday to declassify government records related to the assassinations of President John Kennedy, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

Trump’s order could put an end to some long-standing questions surrounding the assassinations, all of which occurred more than a half-century ago.

The official conclusions that all three assassinations were carried out by lone gunmen have been challenged by a raft of conspiracy theories. The fact that some records about the investigations of the murders have remained classified for so long played a role in fueling those theories.

“That’s a big one,” Trump said in the Oval Office as he signed the executive order.

“Lot of people are waiting for this for a long, long time, for years, for decades, and everything will be revealed,” Trump said.

President Kennedy was killed on Nov. 22, 1963, after being shot while riding in a motorcade in Dallas, Texas.

The Democratic icon’s younger brother, Robert Kennedy, who represented New York in the U.S. Senate, was shot on June 5, 1968, in the kitchen of a Los Angeles hotel after winning California’s Democratic presidential primary. He died the following day.

Trump has nominated the late senator’s son, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., as secretary of the U.S. Health and Human Services Department.

The civil rights leader King was assassinated two months before RFK, on April 4, 1968, when he was shot while standing on the balcony of a motel in Memphis, Tennessee.

This is developing news. Check back for updates.