Robert F. Kennedy assassination: 10,000 pages of records released; Tulsi Gabbard says ‘will shine light on the truth’

The Donald Trump administration on Friday released approximately 10,000 pages of records related to the 1968 assassination of former Senator Robert Francis Kennedy. The release continues the disclosure of national secrets ordered by the President.

The US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said that the RFK files' release will “shine a long-overdue light on the truth,” an AP report said. 

“Nearly 60 years after the tragic assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy, the American people will, for the first time, have the opportunity to review the federal government’s investigation thanks to the leadership of President Trump,” Gabbard was quoted as saying in the report. 

The US National Archives and Records Administration posted roughly 229 files containing the pages on its website.

In an interview with FoxNews, Gabbard said, “What we have just released here today is 10,000 pages that have been sitting in boxes within the National Archives”.

“This came about because President Trump promised the American people that his administration would be one of maximum transparency,” she added.

Many files related to the senator’s assassination had been previously released, but others had not been digitised and sat for decades in storage facilities maintained by the federal government.

Kennedy was fatally shot on June 5, 1968, at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles moments after giving his victory speech for winning California’s Democratic presidential primary. His assassin, Sirhan Sirhan, was convicted of first-degree murder and is serving life in prison.

What the RFK files reveal

The files on ‘Kensalt’, a codename given to the assassination investigation, revealed Sirhan's full name, his address at the time, along with complete details of his family, inlcuding his siblings.

“Sirhan Bishara Sirhan, AKA, Shiran Bishara Shiran, former exercise boy Santa Anita Race Track, California, identified as Senator Kennedy's assailant,” the records said.

With Sirhan's date of birth retracted, Sirhan has been described as “white, make, five feet two inches tall, one one five pounds, black hair, brown eyes”. The family entered the US from Jordan in 1957, the document reveals. The document also says that Sirhan may have used the alias “Ghattas”.

Another individual by the name of Frank Guthrie has been mentioned in the files, who was overheard saying “they should have got Ted Kennedy also".

According to one of the person interviewed to attain more information on Sirhan, he was an introvert, a loner, and never exhibited tendencies towards violence, the files reveal.

The person also said that Sirhan expressed dissatisfaction with administration and newspapers because he believed they sided with Israel.

A girl, identified only with her first name as Sonja, has been mentioned in the files. “A pretty girl was member of same foreign type club (name unknown) as Sirhan. Described girl as 19, five feet four inches, 115 lbs, black hair, dark complexion, possibly Arab,” the files read.

Trump's promise to release RFK, JFK files

US President Donald Trump had signed an executive order to declassify these records, as well as the records regarding the assassination of former president John F Kennedy, and the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Jr, on January 24.

"The Executive Order establishes the policy that, more than 50 years after these assassinations, the victims' families and the American people deserve the truth," a White House statement said.

The order directed the Director of National Intelligence and other appropriate officials to present a plan within 15 days for the full and complete release of all John F Kennedy assassination records and immediately review the records relating to the Robert F Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr assassinations and present a plan for their full and complete release within 45 days.

JFK's assassination records released

The release of the RFK files comes just a month after unredacted files related to the 1963 assassination of former president John F Kennedy were disclosed. Those documents gave curious readers more details about Cold War-era covert U.S. operations in other nations but didn’t initially lend credence to long-circulating conspiracy theories about who killed JFK.