The Trump administration plans to release new documents on former Sen. Robert F. Kennedy’s 1968 assassination in the coming days, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said Thursday, bringing fresh attention to a killing that has drawn public fascination for decades.
It’s not clear what — if any — new information will emerge from the release. But the disclosures have drawn the backing of President Trump and his health and human services secretary, the slain politician’s son Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
During the cabinet meeting in which Gabbard announced the planned release, the health secretary — who has claimed for years his father’s convicted assassin, Sirhan Sirhan, may be innocent — said he’s “very grateful” for the release, while Mr. Trump said, “it’s time.”
Why is the Trump administration releasing files on RFK?
Days after taking office, Mr. Trump signed an executive order directing his government to release files on the 1960s assassinations of three high-profile figures: President John F. Kennedy, his brother Robert F. Kennedy and Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
The administration released a set of newly unredacted files on John F. Kennedy’s 1963 killing last month. Gabbard said in a Cabinet meeting Thursday there are “over a hundred people working around the clock to scan the paper” around Robert F. Kennedy and King’s 1968 assassinations, and her team will “have those ready to release here within the next few days.”
What do we expect in the newly released RFK files?
It’s unclear what documents on Robert F. Kennedy’s assassination are held by the federal government or slated for release. It also remains to be seen whether the disclosures will contain new information, though, on Thursday, Gabbard referenced files that have been “sitting in boxes in storage for decades” and “have never been scanned or seen before.”
Many files on Robert F. Kennedy’s assassination — which was handled by local police investigators in California, where he was killed — are already public. The state of California has held tens of thousands of pages of documents on the killing since the late 1980s, including troves of records from the Los Angeles Police Department’s initial investigation into Sirhan. The bulk of those documents are publicly available, the state says, writing, “every effort has been made to provide the fullest possible disclosure of the records.”
The University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, also maintains an archive with public records on the assassination.
Tim Tate, a writer who argues Sirhan did not fire the bullets that killed Robert F. Kennedy, told CBS News he’s “cautious” about the Trump administration’s promise to release new documents. He noted the files held by the California state archive — including records from a separate FBI probe on the assassination — are supposed to be comprehensive. While it would be “disturbing” if any files from the FBI or other agencies were omitted, it’s unclear what, if anything, was withheld, he said.
Tate said it’s possible “it could all turn out to be a great big nothing burger.”
Similarly, writer Dan Moldea — who says Sirhan was solely responsible for the assassination — said he “can’t imagine something coming out on the RFK files that is going to be striking.”
“I can’t imagine anything of any importance coming out of this,” Moldea said. “Anything important would have been in the LAPD files.”
But Lisa Pease, a writer who has argued Sirhan did not kill Robert F. Kennedy, told CBS News she believes the federal government may hold documents that could shed new light on the assassination. She pointed to records suggesting the CIA communicated with the Los Angeles Police Department about Sirhan during its probe into the killing.
“We’ve only ever seen the LAPD’s side of that conversation, so this is our first chance to maybe, hopefully, find the CIA’s records pertaining to those conversations,” Pease said. “I think there might be some very interesting files.”
Who assassinated RFK — and why is RFK Jr. interested in it?
Robert F. Kennedy, then a New York senator and leading Democratic presidential primary candidate, was fatally shot at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles on June 5, 1968. Five others were injured. Sirhan was convicted of first-degree murder in the killing in 1969 and has spent over a half-century in California state prison, losing over a dozen requests for parole.
Sirhan— whose family is Palestinian — has admitted to killing Kennedy and suggested he was motivated by the presidential candidate’s support for Israel, though he has also asserted his innocence at various points or claimed he couldn’t remember key details from the slaying.
For decades, some critics of the investigation have questioned whether Sirhan was the true assassin or claimed he wasn’t the only gunman. They often cite conflicts between an autopsy report and eyewitness testimony or muddled evidence about the number of gunshots. Still, plenty of other researchers have supported the conclusion that Sirhan acted alone.
One skeptic is Kennedy’s son, Robert F. Kennedy Jr, who met with Sirhan in prison in 2018 and later told the Washington Post he was “disturbed that the wrong person might have been convicted of killing my father.” He and his brother Douglas Kennedy backed Sirhan’s 2021 bid for parole, and California’s parole board later recommended Sirhan’s release, though Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom later rejected the request.
Several of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s siblings disagree with the health secretary, vehemently pushing back against Sirhan’s bids for parole. Chris Kennedy told “CBS Sunday Morning” in 2021 that he doesn’t believe Sirhan’s claims of innocence: “I know he’s a murderer, so it’s not a big leap to believe he’s a liar,” he said.