Trump signs order to declassify JFK, MLK and RFK assassination files
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(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Thursday to declassify files related to the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King.
“That’s a big one,” Trump said as put his signature to the order in the Oval Office. He asked an aide standing nearby to give the marker to Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who he’s nominated to be secretary of Health and Human Services.
Trump has long vowed to make the information public. He released a trove of documents in 2017 related to the 1963 killing of John F. Kennedy but left some of it redacted based on recommendations from the CIA and FBI.
A 1992 law passed by Congress required the release of the JFK files by 2017 unless the president authorized that they be withheld longer.
According to the White House text of the order, Trump has “now determined that the continued redaction and withholding of information” on JFK “is not consistent with the public interest and the release of these records is long overdue.”
“And although no Act of Congress directs the release of information pertaining to the assassinations of Senator Robert F. Kennedy and the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., I have determined that the release of all records in the Federal Government’s possession pertaining to each of those assassinations is also in the public interest,” the order states.
The records, however, will not immediately be made available.
The order gives the director of national intelligence and attorney general 15 days to present a plan to Trump for the “full and complete” release of records for JFK and 45 days for a plan for the RFK and MLK documents.
The Biden administration also released documents related to JFK’s assassination — more than 13,000 of them.
At the time, the National Archives said more than 97% of records in the collection, which contain more than 5 million pages, were publicly available. The CIA also said that 95% of its collection had been released, and that no documents remained entirely redacted.
In 2023, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. called on then-President Joe Biden to release all the files related to his uncle’s assassination.
Last year, as he ran for president first as a Democrat then as an independent before endorsing Trump, RFK Jr. pushed a conspiracy theory that the CIA was directly involved in the assassination of JFK.
When Robert F. Kennedy Jr. stood on stage with Trump in August after making his endorsement, Trump announced he would establish a “a new independent presidential commission on assassination attempts” tasked with releasing “all remaining documents pertaining to President John F. Kennedy’s assassination and other events in question.”
JFK was shot and killed in November 1963 during a visit to Dallas at the hands of Lee Harvey Oswald.
RFK and MLK were killed in 1968. RFK was shot on the night he won the 1968 California Democratic presidential primary by Sirhan Sirhan. King was killed in Memphis, where he was supporting a sanitation workers strike, by James Earl Ray.
“Lot of people are waiting for this for a long — for years and decades,” Trump said as he signed the order on Thursday.
(WASHINGTON) — The theme of President Donald Trump’s high-profile address to Congress and the nation on Tuesday night is “Renewal of the American Dream,” but he’s also expected to remark on what his second-term agenda may mean for the rest of the world.
According to a White House official, the president will lay out his vision for “peace around the globe.”
“He’s going to dive into foreign policy, talk about his intention to end the war in Ukraine, talk about his plan to bring all of the hostages out of Gaza home,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in an interview on Tuesday.
But the president’s speech comes at a particularly contentious time. The aftermath of his heated Oval Office meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy still hangs over Washington, and there are signs that both Israel and Hamas may be preparing to resume fighting as the future of the Gaza ceasefire deal appears to be in jeopardy.
And as the Trump administration levies new tariffs against adversaries and allies alike after turning U.S. foreign policy on its head during his first six weeks back in office, the international community will be listening closely as fellow work leaders try to divine what the next four years may have in store.
Here are some things to watch for:
Will Trump mend his rocky relationship with Ukraine?
After Trump expelled Zelenskyy from the White House and declared the Ukrainian leader was “not ready for peace,” his administration paused the pipeline of U.S. military assistance to the country — further ramping up pressure on Kyiv.
Zelenskyy initially declined to apologize to Trump, but in an address on Tuesday, he called the meeting “regrettable,” adding, “It is time to make things right.”
As part of that, he proposed a partial ceasefire with Russia that he said Ukraine would be willing to implement immediately.
“Then we want to move very fast through all next stages and to work with the U.S. to agree a strong final deal,” he declared.
But whether this is enough to get back in the president’s good graces remains to be seen.
State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce said later on Tuesday there is still “an open door” for Zelenskyy, while applauding Trump.
“This is the end result of what happens when you make it clear to someone that there is one way to move forward,” she said.
A positive sign for Zelenskyy emerged Tuesday afternoon, when two sources briefed on discussions inside the White House told ABC News that the U.S. and Ukraine could sign the mineral deal that was supposed to be inked on Friday as soon as Tuesday.
One source said Trump indicated he would like to sign the deal before the speech but cautioned nothing is final.
But if Zelenskyy’s comments aren’t ultimately enough for the president, it’s possible he could go even further — potentially by attempting to cut off Ukraine from shipments of new weapons from American arm suppliers that were already paid for with money given to Kyiv by the Biden administration or by halting intelligence-sharing with the country.
Others have said they feel like no matter what, the damage has already been done.
“By canceling military aid to Ukraine, Trump doesn’t make peace any closer. It’s not even a blackmailing but rather conscious pressure on Ukraine to capitulate to Russia’s demands, after which Trump can “declare peace,” said Mariia Zolkina, the head of regional security and conflict studies at Ukraine’s Democratic Initiatives Foundation think tank.
“[Trump] can’t make a good deal now and defines Ukraine as ‘guilty’ for this,” she added.
Can the fragile peace in the Middle East last?
After members of his incoming administration worked with members of the Biden administration to secure a ceasefire deal in Gaza, Trump was able to reenter the White House with a major diplomatic win already under his belt.
Now, 44 days after that agreement went into effect, it seems to be at greater risk of falling apart than ever.
Israel revealed on Sunday that the U.S. had offered up another proposal to extend the first phase of the ceasefire deal, which would significantly speed up the release of hostages.
After Hamas rejected the plan, Israel cut off the flow of humanitarian aid to Gaza, a move the Trump administration has backed but other key mediators, such as Egypt and Qatar, have decried as a violation of humanitarian law.
The State Department said on Monday that Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy for the Middle East, is planning to travel to the Middle East this week and that he would seek either to “work out a way to extend phase I or advance to phase II” of the Gaza ceasefire deal.
Trump’s address on Tuesday may offer clarity on what the president would actually like to see happen next in the peace process — beyond his outlandish plan to build what has called the “Riviera of the Middle East” in Gaza.
If the Israel-Hamas war doesn’t get airtime during Trump’s speech, that, too, could be telling about the president’s focus. But on Tuesday, Trump’s top diplomat, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, spoke to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in order to “underscore that the United States’ steadfast support for Israel is a top priority for President Trump,” according to the State Department.
How will Trump handle the tariffs trouble?
On the day of Trump’s address, the president’s long-threatened 25% tariff on goods from Canada and Mexico went into effect, prompting both countries to vow to take retaliatory economic measures — and subsequently leading to the president promising to raise tariffs further.
At the same time, the U.S. introduced another 10% tariff on Chinese imports, and Beijing hit back with its own tariffs on U.S. agricultural products and other measures targeting American business interests.
The immediate impact of the multifront trade wars has been a blow to the U.S. stock market, which Trump often uses as a barometer of his own success.
Economists say U.S. consumers may feel the crunch from tariffs more acutely as time goes on, as retailers are expected to offset costs by raising prices.
Beyond inflating prices, Joshua P. Meltzer, a senior fellow in the Global Economy and Development program at the Brookings Institution, argued the tariffs will also run counter to the Trump administration’s other economic aims.
“These tariffs will also harm the Trump administration’s goal of developing more secure supply chains and competing with China,” he said. “The tariffs are directly at odds with deeper economic integration across North America. In fact, China will benefit from a trade war across North America as it undercuts efforts to reshore supply chains away from China.”
Meltzer also said the move will hurt American credibility.
“They signal to the world that any international agreement with the U.S. is not worth all that much, raising difficult questions for all U.S. allies and trading partners about the value of trade agreements with the U.S.,” he said.
Trump’s address will provide a high-stakes opportunity for the president either to alleviate or exacerbate those concerns among U.S. trading partners.
ABC News’ Katherine Faulders and Rachel Scott as contributors.
(WASHINGTON) — A group of 191 House and Senate Democrats sent a letter to Russell Vought, the newly installed director of the Office of Management and Budget, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, calling on them to reverse course on actions targeting the nation’s consumer financial watchdog agency.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) was created by Congress in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis to safeguard Americans against unfair business practices. It has been brought to a virtual standstill after Vought, who last week was named the agency’s acting director, and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency took control of the agency. Vought has since issued a stop-work order to nearly all CFPB staff.
Democrats, in their letter, are calling for Musk’s DOGE employees, some of whom physically accessed the agency’s federal office and requested access to its industry and consumer data, to be pulled out of the CFPB.
“Your efforts to dismantle the CFPB are dangerous, and we will fight them at every turn. We ask that you remove Mr. Musk’s operatives from the CFPB, restore all internal and external systems and operations, and allow the CFPB to continue to do its job of protecting American consumers,” the Democrats wrote in their letter.
The letter is signed by all Senate Democrats and the two independents — Sen. Angus King, of Maine, and Sen. Bernie Sanders, of Vermont — who caucus with them.
During remarks on Monday from the Oval Office, President Donald Trump said the CFPB was “very important to get rid of” and that the organization was “set up to destroy some very good people.”
When asked if his goal was to completely get rid of the agency, Trump answered in the affirmative.
“I would say yeah, because we’re trying to get rid of waste, fraud and abuse,” Trump said.
Democrats in their letter allege that efforts to sideline the financial watchdog will harm consumers and are potentially illegal.
“The Trump Administration has effectively fired the financial cop on the beat and declared open season for predatory lenders and scam artists working to steal Americans’ money and threaten their financial security,” Democrats said in the letter.
“No matter how badly someone has been cheated and no matter how extensive the scam, the Administration has declared that the financial cops should simply stand by and watch while giant networks of lenders cheat American consumers,” the letter continued. “This is particularly costly for people whose claims of illegal foreclosures, car repossessions, or debanking are currently under investigation by the agency.”
The letter comes as congressional Democrats, who are in the minority in both the House and the Senate, have vowed to use their limited tools to challenge what they say is illegal overreach by the Trump administration and Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency across a number of agencies, including USAID, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the National Institutes of Health and the CFPB.
The National Treasury Employees Union filed two lawsuits this week against Vought, challenging both the takeover of the CFPB and DOGE’s access to its records.
The letter is led by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, of Massachusetts, who is the top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee and helped create the CFPB after the 2008 financial crash. In the days since Elon Musk posted “RIP CFPB” on X, Warren has been a vocal defender of the agency.
Since it was established in 2011, the CFPB says it has clawed back nearly $21 billion for American consumers, addressing complaints over everything from bank fees to credit cards to student loans.
On Tuesday, Warren implored Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, who was appearing before the Senate Banking Committee, to work with Congress to keep Musk’s team out of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
“If the CFPB is not there examining these giant banks to make sure they are following the laws, are not cheating consumers, who is doing that job?” Warren asked Powell during the hearing.
“I can say no other federal regulators,” Powell replied.
“No one. In other words thanks to ‘co-president’ Musk and the CFPB Acting Director Vought, Wall Street banks no longer have to show the bank examiners that they’re not illegally opening accounts people didn’t ask for, like what happened with Wells Fargo, or charging illegal junk fees like Bank of America did,” Warren said.
But some Republicans on the panel pushed back on this line of questioning, saying laws that regulate banks haven’t changed and Elon Musk is simply carrying out the work Trump promised on the campaign.
“There’s been a lot of conversation, both in and out of this hearing room today, conversations about a co-president, referencing Elon Musk, referencing the work that DOGE is doing,” said Alabama Republican Sen. Katie Britt. “I think it’s important to remember that President Trump ran on this. I mean, he said we’re going to look for wasteful spending across our government.”
Democrats, in their letter, say they’ll fight to defend the agency.
“We beat back all prior efforts to gut this agency, and we will fight this latest attack in Congress, the courts, and the public,” the lawmakers wrote. “It will fail.”
Lev Radin/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Image
(NEW YORK) — New York Attorney General Letitia James sent a letter to health care providers, calling on medical institutions to continue providing gender-affirming care amid reports, according the attorney general’s office, that several providers in the state had stopped providing treatments following a President Donald Trump executive order.
James reminded providers in a Monday letter “to comply with New York law … [providers] must continue to provide health care services, including gender affirming care, to transgender or gender nonconforming individuals.”
They must provide care regardless “of the availability of federal funding,” James told providers, noting that New York State laws prohibit discrimination, which includes “withholding the availability of services from transgender individuals based on their gender identity or their diagnosis of gender dysphoria, while offering such services to cisgender individuals.”
In a Jan. 28 executive order, Trump threatened to stop providing federal funding and grants to medical institutions that provided gender-affirming care for people under the age of 19.
Trump’s executive order does not restrict puberty blockers, hormone therapies, or surgeries for cisgender patients under the age of 19.
On Jan. 31, a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order to stop Trump’s efforts to freeze federal funding, saying that the freeze is likely a violation of the Constitution.
James’ office told providers in her letter that the temporary restraining order applied to both current and future grants of federal assistance and that funding cannot be frozen or withdrawn as it applies to providing gender affirming care to minors.
The executive order against gender-affirming care is the latest action from Trump that impacts the transgender community, which is estimated to make up less than 1% of the U.S. population over the age of 13.
Trump also recently signed executive orders restricting transgender participation in the military, ending federal legal recognition of transgender people, and restricting gender marker changes on federal documents.
James was one of 22 state attorneys general behind the lawsuit aiming to halt the implementation of the Trump administration’s policies freezing federal agency grants and financial assistance.
