() The Trump administration Monday released more than 230,000 pages of previously classified documents related to the 1968 assassination of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard announced the release, carried out under President Donald Trump’s executive order directing full transparency on the assassinations of King, President John F. Kennedy and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy.

The documents, now available at archives.gov/mlk, include FBI investigation details, internal memos tracking case progress and information about James Earl Ray’s former cellmate who claimed Ray discussed an assassination plot.

The files also contain foreign evidence from Canadian police and CIA records on the international manhunt for Ray.

“The American people have waited nearly sixty years to see the full scope of the federal government’s investigation into Dr. King’s assassination,” Gabbard said in a statement.

Unlike the JFK assassination files released under federal law, the King documents had never been digitized and “sat collecting dust in facilities across the federal government for decades,” according to the announcement.

Dr. Alveda King, the civil rights leader’s niece, praised the release as “a historic step towards the truth that the American people deserve.”

What happened during the Martin Luther King Jr. assassination?

King was shot on April 4, 1968, at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. Ray pleaded guilty to killing King but later tried to withdraw his guilty plea.

Conspiracy theories have circulated about King’s death, in part prompted by Ray’s claims that his confession had been forced and the revelation of illegal surveillance of King by the FBI and the CIA. The FBI also allegedly attempted to get King to commit suicide.

Some in King’s family also believe that the government and possibly the Mafia were involved in the assassination and that Ray was set up to take the fall.

The United States House Select Committee on Assassinations determined in 1979 that there was a likelihood Ray acted for monetary gain and that there was likely a conspiracy behind the shooting. The committee, however, said the conspiracy was likely originating from white supremacist groups rather than the government.

MLK Jr.’s family urges files be viewed with ‘empathy’

King’s family, including his two living children, Martin III and Bernice, were given advance notice of the release and had their own teams reviewing the records ahead of the public disclosure.

In a lengthy statement, the two living King children called their father’s case a “captivating public curiosity for decades” but called for “empathy, restraint, and respect for our family’s continuing grief.”

The pair emphasized the personal nature of the matter, urging that “these files must be viewed within their full historical context.”

Statement from the King Family on the Release of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Assassination Files:

“We recognize that the release of documents concerning the assassination of our father, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., has long been a subject of interest, captivating public curiosity for decades. As the children of Dr. King and Mrs. Coretta Scott King, his tragic death has been an intensely personal grief – a devastating loss for his wife, children, and the granddaughter he never met – an absence our family has endured for over 57 years. We ask those who engage with the release of these files to do so with empathy, restraint, and respect for our family’s continuing grief. The release of these files must be viewed within their full historical context. During our father’s lifetime, he was relentlessly targeted by an invasive, predatory, and deeply disturbing disinformation and surveillance campaign orchestrated by J. Edgar Hoover through the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).  The intent of the government’s COINTELPRO campaign was not only to monitor, but to discredit, dismantle and destroy Dr. King’s reputation and the broader American Civil Rights Movement. These actions were not only invasions of privacy, but intentional assaults on the truth – undermining the dignity and freedoms of private citizens who fought for justice, designed to neutralize those who dared to challenge the status quo. In 1999, our family filed a wrongful death civil lawsuit in Shelby County, Tennessee. The jury unanimously concluded that our father was the victim of a conspiracy involving Loyd Jowers and unnamed co-conspirators, including government agencies as a part of a wider scheme. The verdict also affirmed that someone other than James Earl Ray was the shooter, and that Mr. Ray was set up to take the blame. Our family views that verdict as an affirmation of our long-held beliefs.  As we review these newly released files, we will assess whether they offer additional insights beyond the findings our family has already accepted. While we support transparency and historical accountability, we object to any attacks on our father’s legacy or attempts to weaponize it to spread falsehoods. We strongly condemn any attempts to misuse these documents in ways intended to undermine our father’s legacy and the significant achievements of the movement. Those who promote the fruit of the FBI’s surveillance will unknowingly align themselves with an ongoing campaign to degrade our father and the Civil Rights Movement. Instead of repeating the injustices of the past, we encourage the public to continue the work that our father began – building equity, justice, and peace for all. Now more than ever, we must honor his sacrifice by committing ourselves to the realization of his dream – a society rooted in compassion, unity, and equality. Let us move forward together, inspired by our father’s enduring vision of the Beloved Community – a world made possible when we choose to center love in all that we do. By embracing compassion, mutual respect, and justice, we can transform his dream into our shared reality.”

Martin Luther King III and Dr. Bernice A. King

‘s Stephanie Whiteside and The Associated Press contributed to this report.