By Steve Neavling
A federal judge is considering whether to unseal decades-old FBI surveillance records on Martin Luther King Jr., as the Trump administration seeks early access to documents that King’s family and supporters want to keep sealed.
At a hearing Wednesday in Washington, D.C., U.S. District Judge Richard Leon said he would first review an inventory of the records before deciding whether to lift a 1977 sealing order set to expire in 2027, the Associated Press reports.
“This is delicate stuff,” Leon said. “We’re going to go slowly. Little steps.”
The Justice Department argued that only files related to King’s assassination would be reviewed for public release. The move follows a January executive order by former President Donald Trump directing Attorney General Pam Bondi to release documents about King’s killing “because the American people have an interest in full transparency.”
But lawyers for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which King led, objected, citing privacy concerns and the harm that could come from publicizing illegal FBI surveillance targeting King and SCLC officials.
“Since its inception, this case has been about government overreach,” said SCLC attorney Sumayya Saleh.
Bernice King, the civil rights leader’s daughter, also opposed the release, calling the surveillance a violation of her father’s rights.
“It is unquestionable that my father was a private citizen, not an elected official, who enjoyed the right to privacy that should be afforded to all private citizens of this country,” she said in a court filing. “To not only be unjustifiably surveilled, but to have the purported surveillance files made public would be a travesty of justice.”
Judge Leon said the court would proceed with caution, noting, “It’s not going to happen overnight.”
