Trump administration releases 60,000 more files on RFK assassination

The federal government published more than 60,000 pages of records on Sen. Robert F. Kennedy’s assassination late Wednesday — the second tranche of documents to be released on the 1968 slaying.

The releases were ordered by President Trump in January, with backing from the senator’s son, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has claimed for years that his father’s convicted killer Sirhan Sirhan might be innocent.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence said the documents “have been sitting in various storage facilities across the federal government for decades and had never been digitized or accessible to the public before.” They were digitized by ODNI — which is led by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard — and posted on the National Archives website.

“Today’s release is an important step toward maximum transparency, finding the truth, and sharing the truth,” Gabbard said in a post on Truth Social.

Mr. Trump has also ordered the release of documents on President John F. Kennedy’s 1963 assassination and Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1968 killing. Some John F. Kennedy files were released in March, but the King documents have not been released.

What’s in the RFK files — and will we learn anything new?

ODNI said the documents posted Wednesday include “never-before-seen details about the FBI’s investigation into the assassination of RFK — including the discussion of potential leads by various FBI offices, internal FBI memos detailing the progress of the case, and more.”

The records also include recordings of Los Angeles police interviews with Sirhan and eyewitnesses to the 1968 assassination, according to ODNI. 

But it’s unclear whether the files will reveal new information about Robert F. Kennedy’s killing.

The senator’s 1968 assassination was primarily investigated and prosecuted by authorities in Los Angeles. Documents from the local investigation — along with many records from a separate FBI probe — have been publicly available in California’s state archives since the late 1980s. ODNI said some of the records that were published Wednesday had previously been handed over to the Los Angeles Police Department.

What did last month’s RFK files say?

The government released a trove of 10,000 records on Robert F. Kennedy last month. A CBS News review found the documents included handwritten notes from Sirhan — including ones in which Sirhan wrote “RFK must be disposed of like his brother was” — as well as FBI memos on Sirhan, crime scene and autopsy photos, witness interviews and other materials.

A few of those records make reference to common conspiracy theories about the assassination, including mentions of witnesses seeing a woman in a polka-dot dress or somebody shouting “we shot him.” Other witnesses said they didn’t see anybody matching that description.

Many of the details in those files were already publicly known.

Who killed RFK — and what has RFK Jr. said?

Sirhan was convicted of killing Robert F. Kennedy — then a Democratic presidential primary candidate — at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. He was 24 years old when he was arrested shortly after the shooting. Sirhan has admitted to killing the senator at various points, sometimes claiming it was due to the senator’s support for Israel, though at other times, Sirhan has said he is innocent or said he couldn’t remember the incident.

Sirhan has been incarcerated in California for decades, and multiple requests for parole have been unsuccessful. The state’s parole board endorsed his 2021 bid for parole, but California’s Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom rejected the request.

The case has drawn public fascination for decades, with some observers claiming Sirhan didn’t fire the fatal shots or acted as part of a wider conspiracy. They often cite conflicting eyewitness testimonies or the alleged presence of extra bullets — though many others have backed the view that Sirhan acted alone.

One of the skeptics is Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who was 14 years old when his father was assassinated. He has argued Sirhan wasn’t responsible for the killing, and met with him in prison before backing his 2021 request for parole. 

However, other members of the Kennedy family have staunchly opposed Sirhan’s release from prison.

Letter from RFK Jr. to former Attorney General Eric Holder

Among the newly published documents is a letter Kennedy Jr. wrote in 2012 to then-Attorney General Eric Holder, asking for Holder to reopen the investigation into the assassination. 

Kennedy Jr. wrote in his letter that he was writing in support of a request to investigate made by Paul Schrade, “a close friend and advisor to my father. He was standing beside my father when Daddy was killed and Paul was himself wounded by a bullet.”

Kennedy Jr.’s request focused on an audio analysis of the shooting that purported to suggest 13 shots fired, more than the eight rounds in Sirhan’s handgun. this would offer proof there was a second gunman. The request includes an analysis that concluded, “due to the poor quality of the recording (high background noise, distance of the microphone from the shooting source, initial recording made on a low grade recorder), an absolutely exact number of shot-sounds could not be determined.”

FBI probed leads ultimately deemed not credible

FBI memos released Wednesday include some that described investigations into at least four people accused of having prior knowledge of the assassination: A person who claimed to have predicted the assassination, somebody who claimed to know about a co-conspirator, a person who claimed Sirhan had offered him $1 million to kill Kennedy, and somebody who burst into a congressional office and claimed that he’d given the orders to kill RFK. 

Many of these and other allegations were deemed not credible, and some of the people making the claims were described in the documents as unreliable. 

Sirhan went to a gun range two days before the assassination

One FBI memo reveals Sirhan was surveilled in January 1968. It is unclear why, but there’s no indication from the memo that the FBI developed concerning intelligence from the surveillance.

The records lay out some details of the days and hours leading up to the assassination. The wife of a gun store owner identified Sirhan as among a group of people who on June 1, 1968 request information about “armor-piercing ammunition,” before Sirhan purchased ammo from the store. 

A staffer at a gun range told FBI agents that on June 4, 1968, the day before the shooting, he encountered a man he later identified from a photo as Sirhan. The man fired at targets with high accuracy and purchased ammunition, the staffer said. A woman with him also practiced shooting and was described as blonde and muscular.

A witness said that on the night of the killing, Sirhan expressed anger towards “rich people” and said he thought that other people at the event were disdainful of him.