Daughter of the late civil rights icon Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Bernice King, is calling out the Trump administration for what she calls a political distraction following he release of hundreds of thousands of documents related to her father’s assassination.
The activist is demanding the same transparency in the case of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
On Monday, July 21, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, appointed by President Donald Trump, announced the release of more than 230,000 previously classified pages connected to Dr. King’s 1968 assassination, promising “complete transparency.”
The move came amid renewed debates over government secrecy and accountability. But Bernice King, CEO of The King Center in Atlanta, was concerned about the timing and motive behind the release.
“Now, do the Epstein files,” she tweeted shortly after the announcement, referencing the government’s ongoing resistance to fully disclose documents tied to Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking network.
Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Justice released a memo claiming there was no evidence of a long-rumored client list of high-profile individuals connected to Epstein’s criminal enterprise. The memo was met with widespread skepticism from activists, survivors, and transparency advocates.
Compounding frustrations, the Republican-led House Rules Committee recently blocked an amendment that would have allowed Congress to vote on making the Epstein records public.
In a rare joint statement, Bernice King and her brother, Martin Luther King III, addressed the administration’s move:
“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.”
The King Center also issued a formal statement condemning the timing of the unsealing:
“It is unfortunate and ill-timed, given the myriad of pressing issues and injustices affecting the United States and the global society.”
Critics argue the MLK document release, though important in principle, is being leveraged as a smokescreen — potentially to overshadow other calls for justice, particularly surrounding Epstein and his alleged co-conspirators.
The move by the Trump administration has drawn both praise and scrutiny, with some historians welcoming the release for academic purposes, while others question why transparency seems selective when it comes to powerful individuals allegedly tied to Epstein’s criminal empire.
