Bernice King, the youngest daughter of the late Martin Luther King Jr., weighed in on President Trump’s decision to release hundreds of thousands of documents related to her father’s assassination, while urging them to unveil the files tied to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.
King’s message came on Monday, shortly after Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard published over 230,000 pages of information related to King’s death in 1968, including details about the FBI’s investigation, memos about the case and the manhunt of shooter James Earl Ray.
“Now, do the Epstein files,” she wrote on social platform X, attaching a photo of her father giving a side-eye expression.
“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,” Bernice King and Martin Luther King III, the last living children of the late civil rights advocate, said in a joint statement on Monday.
“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,” the duo continued. “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.”
The release of the documents comes as the Trump administration has faced demands from lawmakers in Congress and the president’s MAGA base to share more information related to Epstein’s case.
Attorney General Pam Bondi has faced the bulk of the pressure, particularly after the Justice Department (DOJ) and the FBI released a joint, unsigned memo earlier this month concluding that Epstein did not keep a so-called “client list” and that he died by suicide in 2019 while awaiting trial.
Trump has at times shown frustration around the case as the topic dominated headlines, including questions from many of his supporters. The president ordered Bondi last week to release relevant grand jury testimony about the case.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche has contacted attorneys for Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s close associate who was convicted in 2021 on sex trafficking charges and sentenced to 20 years in prison, about arranging a meeting to “determine whether she would be willing to speak with prosecutors from the Department.”
A House Oversight subcommittee voted on Tuesday to subpoena Maxwell.
