[House Hearing, 119 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
DECLASSIFIED MLK RECORDS: WHAT THEY
REVEAL AND WHY THEY MATTER
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
TASK FORCE ON THE DECLASSIFICATION OF FEDERAL SECRETS
of the
COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED NINETEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
JANUARY 22, 2026
__________
Serial No. 119-56
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available on: govinfo.gov, oversight.house.gov or docs.house.gov
_______
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
62-608 PDF WASHINGTON : 2026
COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM
JAMES COMER, Kentucky, Chairman
Jim Jordan, Ohio Robert Garcia, California, Ranking
Mike Turner, Ohio Minority Member
Paul Gosar, Arizona Eleanor Holmes Norton, District of
Virginia Foxx, North Carolina Columbia
Glenn Grothman, Wisconsin Stephen F. Lynch, Massachusetts
Michael Cloud, Texas Raja Krishnamoorthi, Illinois
Gary Palmer, Alabama Ro Khanna, California
Clay Higgins, Louisiana Kweisi Mfume, Maryland
Pete Sessions, Texas Shontel Brown, Ohio
Andy Biggs, Arizona Melanie Stansbury, New Mexico
Nancy Mace, South Carolina Maxwell Frost, Florida
Pat Fallon, Texas Summer Lee, Pennsylvania
Byron Donalds, Florida Greg Casar, Texas
Scott Perry, Pennsylvania Jasmine Crockett, Texas
William Timmons, South Carolina Emily Randall, Washington
Tim Burchett, Tennessee Suhas Subramanyam, Virginia
Lauren Boebert, Colorado Yassamin Ansari, Arizona
Anna Paulina Luna, Florida Wesley Bell, Missouri
Nick Langworthy, New York Lateefah Simon, California
Eric Burlison, Missouri Dave Min, California
Eli Crane, Arizona Ayanna Pressley, Massachusetts
Brian Jack, Georgia Rashida Tlaib, Michigan
John McGuire, Virginia James R. Walkinshaw, Virginia
Brandon Gill, Texas
Vacancy
------
Mark Marin, Staff Director
James Rust, Deputy Staff Director
Ryan Giachetti, Chief Counsel
Kaity Wolfe, Director for Oversight
Mary Woodard, Senior Counsel
Emily Allen, Professional Staff Member
Mallory Cogar, Director of Operations and Chief Clerk
Contact Number: 202-225-5074
Robert Edmonson, Minority Staff Director
Contact Number: 202-225-5051
------
Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets
Anna Paulina Luna, Florida, Chairwoman
Nancy Mace, South Carolina Jasmine Crockett, Texas, Ranking
Tim Burchett, Tennessee Member
Lauren Boebert, Colorado Raja Krishnamoorthi, Illinois
Eric Burlison, Missouri Summer Lee, Pennsylvania
Eli Crane, Arizona Dave Min, California
Brandon Gill, Texas Vacancy
C O N T E N T S
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OPENING STATEMENTS
Page
Hon. Anna Paulina Luna, U.S. Representative, Chairwoman.......... 1
Hon. Jasmine Crockett, U.S. Representative, Ranking Member....... 2
WITNESSES
Dr. Alveda King, Chair, American Dream, America First Policy
Institute
Oral Statement................................................... 4
Mr. Stuart Wexler, Author and Investigative Researcher
Oral Statement................................................... 5
Mr. Kia Hamadanchy (Minority Witness), Senior Policy Counsel,
American Civil Liberties Union
Oral Statement................................................... 7
Written opening statements and bios are available on the U.S.
House of Representatives Document Repository at:
docs.house.gov.
INDEX OF DOCUMENTS
* Article, CNN, ``Judge Deals Blow to the Trump Justice
Deparment's Use of The Civil Rights Act to `Clean' Voter
Roles''; submitted by Rep. Crockett.
* Article, NYT, ``The Many Political Interpretations of Martin
Luther King Jr.'s Legacy''; submitted by Rep. Crockett.
* Article, SPLC, ``Trump Executive Action on Voting,
Explained''; submitted by Rep. Crockett.
* Article, NBC News, ``Trump is Turning Dr. King's Dream Into a
Nightmare''; submitted by Rep. Crockett.
* Article, ACLU, ``Trump's Attempt to Roll Back Key Civil
Rights-Enforcement Tool''; submitted by Rep. Crockett.
* Article, Times, ``With MLK Files Released, Trump Plays Fire
With a Legacy Whose Importance He Doesn't Fully Grasp'';
submitted by Rep. Crockett.
* Article, USA Today, ``Trump Says DEI, Civil Rights Policies
Hurt White People. Do They?''; submitted by Rep. Crockett.
The documents listed above are available at: docs.house.gov.
DECLASSIFIED MLK RECORDS: WHAT THEY
REVEAL AND WHY THEY MATTER
----------
THURSDAY, JANUARY 22, 2026
U.S. House of Representatives
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets
Washington, D.C.
The Task Force met, pursuant to notice, at 10:12 a.m., Room
HVC-210, U.S. Capitol Visitor Center, Hon. Anna Luna,
[Chairwoman of the Task Force] presiding.
Present: Representatives Luna, Mace, Burchett, Burlison,
Crockett, and Lee.
Also present: Representative Tlaib .
Mrs. Luna. The Task Force on the Declassification of
Federal Secrets will come to order.
Welcome, everyone. Without objection, the Chair may declare
a recess at any time. I recognize myself for the purpose of
making an opening statement.
OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRWOMAN ANNA PAULINA LUNA
REPRESENTATIVE FROM FLORIDA
On Thursday, April 4, 1968, America was forever changed
when Dr. Martin Luther King was tragically assassinated on a
balcony at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. Dr. King's
murder was an immense tragedy for the Nation, the civil rights
movement, as well as the King family. Over time, it has become
increasingly clear that our Federal Government was not honest
about this investigation regarding the tragedy or its abuses
leading up to it. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, the FBI waged
an extensive campaign of surveillance, intimidation, and
harassment against Dr. King. They wiretapped his phones, bugged
his hotel rooms, and paid informants to spy on him.
The Task Force is gathered here today to examine the
benefits of declassification and how disclosure can start to
rebuild trust in this Federal Government and avoid these
horrendous abuses from ever happening again. President Trump's
executive order directing agencies to release extensive files
on Dr. King was the right thing to do. It is the job of this
Task Force to ensure that Federal agencies comply with the
executive order.
Even now, records remain outstanding, including those
covered in the highly anticipated 1977 settlement requiring the
FBI to release its records in 2027. It is, however, important
to note that those wiretaps were illegally obtained and meant
to smear Dr. King.
I want to make it clear that we are not here to speculate
without facts. We are here to seek the truth. Declassification
is not about politics. It is about justice and transparency. It
is also about ensuring the American people finally receive the
full story behind one of the most consequential and tragic
events in our Nation's history. For too long, that truth has
remained sealed. It is long past time to confront our history
honestly so that we can begin rebuilding the public's faith in
an institution meant to serve them.
Mrs. Luna. And with that, I yield to Ranking Member
Crockett for her opening statement.
OPENING STATEMENT OF RANKING MEMBER
JASMINE CROCKETT, REPRESENTATIVE FROM TEXAS
Ms. Crockett. Thank you so much, Madam Chair.
And it is a bit surreal for me to sit here as someone who
attended college in Memphis, Tennessee, and is a civil rights
lawyer and now has the privilege of serving in Congress, mostly
because of the activism of not only Dr. King but all of those
involved in the civil rights movement. And to serve as the
Ranking Member, nevertheless, when I know that literally it was
he, along with others, that fought for the Voting Rights Act to
be signed into law, as well as the Civil Rights Act to be
signed into law.
At the same time, I cannot help but to feel a bit
conflicted at the moment in which we are in right now, where it
seems like a lot of that work is being rolled back. But
nevertheless, I am so grateful to the Chairwoman for making
sure that we could dig into this because if we do not
understand the errors of our past, then we are doomed to repeat
them.
This past weekend, we celebrated the life and legacy of Dr.
Martin Luther King, Jr., a life dedicated to fighting for civil
liberties and economic opportunity through nonviolent
resistance, a legacy built on demanding institutions to uphold
the promises laid out in our Constitution and an impact
continued by his living children.
One year ago, President Trump signed Executive Order 14176,
which ordered the release and declassification of documents
regarding the assassinations of former President John F.
Kennedy, his brother Robert F. Kennedy, and Dr. King. This
order and the subsequent release of roughly 250,000 pages
pertaining to Dr. King's assassination were done in the name of
transparency and strong public interest.
Yet when it comes to the crimes that have not been brought
to justice or the victims and families that have not had their
day in court, this administration has lied to the American
people, disregarded subpoenas and discharged petitions like
they are mere suggestions, and continues to trample over
transparency, despite incredibly strong public interest, both
domestically and internationally.
Dr. King's assassin was held accountable for his crimes,
but I am sure we all know of a group of individuals who have
not been afforded that same justice. The hundreds of victims of
sexual abuse and human trafficking at the hands of Epstein,
Maxwell, and countless others we have no knowledge of due to
this administration's withholding of the files. And I must say
that the Chairwoman has also been very strong on these issues,
so I just want to be clear on that.
How can we engage in a serious conversation about what the
American people ought to know when there are predators and
there are enablers that continue to walk free and potentially
perpetrate those same crimes? We simply cannot in good faith,
but this administration does not know good faith. This
administration knows distraction, destruction, and deals all
for the benefit and protection of the President and his
billionaire buddies.
We know that no new information regarding King's
assassination was uncovered following the release of the
declassified documents. But released documents pertaining to
the FBI and CIA's investigation of King highlight the
weaponization of the FBI to undermine King's efforts and
tarnish his image, something this administration knows all too
well, whether it be weaponizing the DOJ to go after Jack Smith
for his January 6 investigation or the directing of the FBI to
investigate Ms. Becca Good following her wife Renee Good's
murder at the hands of an ICE agent. This administration's
actions today are reminiscent of Hoover's FBI that worked so
diligently to ensure that equality and justice for all would
not become a reality.
Trump's 2025 release of the declassified MLK documents also
circumvents a 1977 order by Judge John L. Smith to seal the
records for 50 years, which would release them in 2027.
Releasing the documents two years ahead of their schedule order
is another example of this administration's laundry list of
ignoring the law and its pattern of slashing through protocols
that protect our national security and intelligence.
Today's hearing and the continued actions of the
administration undermine the work Dr. King dedicated his life
to, while also reminding us how the Trump Administration and
Republicans, to quote Dr. King himself, ``are more concerned
about the status quo than about justice, equality, and
humanity.''
Thank you, and I yield back.
Mrs. Luna. I ask for unanimous consent for Representative
Mfume of Maryland to be waived onto the Task Force for today's
hearing for the purpose of asking questions.
Ms. Crockett. No objection.
Mrs. Luna. Without objection, so ordered.
I am pleased to welcome the panel of witnesses here today.
I would like to first welcome Dr. Alveda King, who happens to
have her birthday today, so happy birthday, ma'am.
Dr. King. [Off mic.]
Mrs. Luna. Oh, just real quick, how old are you turning
again?
Ms. Crockett. Oh, no, you did not.
Mrs. Luna. Yes, yes, no, she was telling--you said 70--75.
Ms. Crockett. You are going to put that on the record?
Mrs. Luna. Happy 75th birthday, ma'am. We are very happy to
have you here today.
Dr. King is the niece of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King.
She is a former college professor, previously served in the
Georgia State House, and is a former Presidential appointee.
Dr. King currently serves as the Chair of the American Dream at
the America First Policy Institute.
Mr. Stuart Wexler is an investigative researcher and author
who has cowritten two books on the Dr. King assassination.
And Mr. Kia Hamadanchy is a senior Federal policy counsel
at ACLU. He is a former House and Senate staffer and went to
work at the Peace Street Project and the congressional
Progressive Caucus Center.
Pursuant to the Committee rule 9(g), the witnesses will
please stand and raise your right hand.
Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony that you
are about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing
but the truth, so help you God?
Let the record show that the witnesses answered in the
affirmative. Thank you. You may take your seats.
We appreciate you being here today and look forward to your
testimonies.
Let me remind the witnesses that we have all read your
written statement, and it will also appear in full in the
hearing record. Please limit your oral responses to 5 minutes,
but if it goes over, it is okay.
As a reminder, please press the button on the microphone in
front of you so that it is on and that the Members can hear
you. When you begin to speak, the light in front of you will
turn green, and after 4 minutes, the light will turn yellow.
When the red light comes on, your 5 minutes has expired, and we
would ask you to please wrap up.
I now recognize Dr. King for her opening statement.
STATEMENT DR. ALVEDA KING, CHAIR, AMERICAN DREAM AMERICA FIRST
POLICY INSTITUTE
Dr. King. Thank you. Madam Chairwoman, Ranking Member, and
Members of this honorable Committee, thank you for allowing me
to appear before you today. I am grateful for your service to
our Nation and for your willingness to engage in this important
and solemn work.
I am Dr. Alveda Celeste King. I come before you today not
only as a policy leader, as a daughter, a niece, a
granddaughter, a mother, a grandmother, and a woman of faith. I
wish to begin by expressing sincere appreciation to President
Donald J. Trump. My mother's last message to him--and my mother
was a very devoted Democrat, but she was so blessed when
President Trump signed our home that had been bombed in
Birmingham, Alabama, in 1963, and she thanked him for putting
the home of her husband and our family on the registry when he
signed that, and it is on the cover of one of our books.
Attorney General Pam Bondi and Director Tulsi Gabbard for
their commitment to transparency and openness in government.
The release of the files related to the assassination of my
uncle, Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., represents a
meaningful and historic step toward faith and truth and
justice. Especially difficult truth has a way of getting and
setting us free. Transparency invites trust, and trust is
essential for national hearing--healing.
This moment--I am very emotional because it triggers many
memories as I am speaking to you today. Please excuse me. This
moment is deeply personal for me and my family. My uncle, Dr.
Martin Luther King, Jr., was first and foremost a preacher of
the gospel. Before he was the global civil rights leader, he
was guided by faith, prayer, and family as a husband, a father,
an uncle, a servant of God. He believed with all his heart that
we are one blood, one human race, created by God and called to
love one another, even when that love is costly.
My father, the Reverend A.D. King, was a pastor and civil
rights leader who stood faithfully beside his brother in the
civil rights movement. Daddy, too, preached nonviolence,
reconciliation, and courage rooted in faith.
My grandfather, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Sr.,
or Daddy King, as we called him, raised our family in the
church and taught us that righteousness, justice, humility, and
perseverance must guide our public lives as well as our private
ones.
As we have reviewed these newly released records, we are
reminded that the civil rights era was marked not only by moral
courage but also by deep concern, misunderstanding, and
mistrust. There were moments when institutions failed to live
up to their highest calling. Instead of protecting voices
calling for justice and for peace, actions were taken that
caused pain, confusion, and heartbreak for my family and for
many others who labored peacefully for equal rights. I say this
not in anger but in honesty and with sincere grace from God.
We cannot heal what we refuse to acknowledge, and yet we
must approach the truth with humility and forgiveness,
remembering that our goal is not condemnation but rather
restoration and healing. My uncle taught us that love must be
the center of every pursuit of justice. Nonviolence was not
merely a tactic for him. It was a way of life. He reminded us
that hate cannot drive out hate. Only love can do that.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness. Only light can do that. In
a time when our Nation feels deeply divided, I believe this
moment offers an invitation to unity, to prayer, and to a
renewed commitment to the ideals that bind us together. I pray
that the work of this Committee will help lead our Nation
forward in wisdom, humility, and peace.
Thank you for allowing me to share my heart today. I look
forward to your questions.
Mrs. Luna. Thank you, Dr. King.
I now recognize Mr. Wexler for his opening statement.
STATEMENT OF MR. STUART WEXLER
AUTHOR AND INVESTIGATIVE RESEARCHER
Mr. Wexler. Greetings, Chairwoman Luna, Ranking Member
Crockett. Do I need to----
Mrs. Luna. Yes, press the button, please.
Mr. Wexler. Greetings, Chairwoman Luna, Ranking Member
Crockett. Thank you--and everyone else on the Task Force. Thank
you for giving me the opportunity to talk to you folks today.
My focus is going to be on material that we can obtain, but
I want to say that the material that you already have released,
which is something like 245,000 pages, is already a major
contribution to scholarship, to investigations, to the public
in trying to understand what happened. I will talk a little bit
about what is in that material. Most of my time is going to be
pleading with you folks to release some more.
The main focus of what I am going to be talking about--and
I will go into some depth and in questions--is my hope that you
will release the sealed material, sealed by this body, by the
House of Representatives. This is incredibly important. You are
the folks who can release it. Executive order cannot release
it. To release the materials from the House Select Committee on
Assassinations--I am going to call it the HSCA a lot as we move
forward--that was sealed not by a judge, this was sealed by the
Clerk of the House of Representatives. But it can be unsealed--
it is a misperception; I will talk about it--at the discretion
of that Clerk. I am going to actually ask you folks to do that
and to do it selectively, and that might be a little bit
controversial, but I will explain why.
So, a little bit about me, I have been researching all
three assassinations for--since I was 12. I am about to be 50
in a couple of weeks. I grew up in a RFK, MLK, JFK family. I
have authored two books on Martin Luther King's assassination.
I believe Martin Luther King was one of the greatest moral
leaders of our time, possibly of any time, and in fact, I think
he was killed in large part by people who wanted to divide our
country against each other and have us engage in basically a
genocidal civil war because, crazily enough, they think that
somehow from those ashes, something good would come.
And for two weeks after Dr. King was killed, when our
country descended into the worst domestic unrest that we
experienced since the Civil War and Reconstruction, some of
those people might have been licking their lips, but they
failed. And I would like to actually take this opportunity, if
the King family is watching, to extend it to them, but to Ms.
King, to thank their family. They do not get enough credit for
what they did after his assassination to calm the tensions in
this country when we were at each other's throats.
I mentioned that I come from a JFK, MLK, RFK family. My
father and my grandparents were at the March on Washington in
1963. Five years later, on April 5, in the chaos in the school
in which my father taught, he was knocked to the ground. A
student had a chair and was ready to hit him in the head, but
he paused and he put the chair down. And my father was
convinced that it is because that student thought about the
example not only Dr. King but the message and the example that
his family was offering to the country at the time. And it
might be presumptuous of me, definitely going to do it on
behalf of my late father, but to do it on behalf of the
country. I do not know if anybody's ever thanked you folks for
that, but amongst the many things that you should be thankful--
thanked for, that is one of them.
Now, I would love to reframe the focus of this Committee
not to the legacy necessarily specifically of Dr. King but to
focus it on very specifically what the executive order that
Donald Trump's put into effect I think almost a year ago to
this day, and that is releasing files very specifically related
to his assassination. There is a misconception that the
material that was released in June was derogatory material
toward Martin Luther King. No, your Committee and the archives
actually did an amazing job of focusing the material that was
released on his actual murder and the investigation of his
murder.
The material that was released was something called the
MURKIN files. That is an abbreviation the FBI gave it. It is
murder of Martin Luther King. Every single field office in the
United States was involved in the investigation of the murder
that happened afterwards, and you folks got--released virtually
every single one of those files, including headquarters files.
There is a handful I could talk about it that need to be put
in, but almost all of them were released.
There is almost nothing in there--I can see--I have never
seen--I have been researching this for 20 years. In the MURKIN
material, you do not find the kind of salacious stuff that J.
Edgar Hoover was quite deliberately collecting to try and smear
Dr. King. And frankly--and this is a point I want to make. I am
actually kind of glad it does not because if you know
anything--and I am going to probably ask questions about this--
that material is unvetted material, so it is not necessarily
good stuff.
But what you can do--and I am running out of time--there is
still one major body of evidence that needs to be released. It
is the House Select Committee on Assassinations files on Martin
Luther King's assassination. Nearly every single page of the
concurrent investigation into the JFK assassination has been
released. Zero has been released on the Martin Luther King
assassination.
Mrs. Luna. Mr. Wexler, we are a minute over and we have to
run to votes real quick, so we will continue to ask you those,
but we are going to move on to our next witness----
Mr. Wexler. Certainly.
Mrs. Luna [continuing]. Mr. Hamadanchy.
STATEMENT OF MR. KIA HAMADANCHY (MINORITY WITNESS)
SENIOR POLICY COUNSEL
AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION
Mr. Hamadanchy. Chairwoman Luna, Ranking Member Crockett,
and Members of this Task Force, thank you for the opportunity
to testify today on behalf of the American Civil Liberties
Union about the release of files related to the legal
surveillance of Dr. Martin Luther King and broader issues of
government surveillance.
The surveillance of Dr. Martin Luther King represents one
of the darkest abuses of government power in the history of our
country. Under the FBI's Counterintelligence Program
(COINTELPRO), Dr. King was subjected to extensive warrantless
surveillance that violated both his constitutional rights and
the fundamental principles of a free society. The FBI's
campaign against Dr. King had no connection to any legitimate
national security concerns or law enforcement purpose. The FBI
wiretapped Dr. King's phones, bugged his hotel rooms, monitored
his associates, and attempted to destroy his reputation. It
remains one of the most shameful episodes in FBI history. The
surveillance was warrantless, it was illegal, and it was wrong.
This experience helps show how surveillance powers that the
government can ostensibly claim for legitimate purposes can
easily be weaponized against whichever groups the government
views as threatening at any given moment, whether civil rights
activists in the 1960s, antiwar protesters in the 1970s, or
Muslim Americans after 9/11.
In 1975, the Senate established the Church Committee, which
remains the gold standard for congressional oversight. Their
investigation uncovered COINTELPRO, the FBI's program under J.
Edgar Hoover to infiltrate and disrupt civil rights and antiwar
movements. Few members of any of the groups targeted by
COINTELPRO were ever charged with a crime.
Operation CHAOS, the CIA's domestic surveillance of antiwar
protesters, political dissidents, and civil rights activists,
and Project SHAMROCK, a National Security Agency (NSA) program
that collected the contents of private telegrams and
communications without warrant or judicial approval. The
Committee's work led to the creation of the House and Senate
Intelligence Committees and the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act, or FISA. Over time, however, these
achievements eroded as the oversight framework established in
the 1970s has proved ill-equipped to handle the modern era.
In recent decades, under Presidents of both parties, we
have seen a massive expansion of the government's surveillance
apparatus in ways that threaten our rights, allowing the
government access to vast amounts of personal information and
communications, often without warrants or the kind of robust
self-safeguards needed to protect individual privacy and
constitutional rights. And the concerns regarding these
programs from Congress have been bipartisan, including
legislation introduced by the Chairwoman of this Committee to
repeal the Patriot Act.
On April 20, section 702 of FISA is scheduled to expire.
While intended for foreign targets, section 702 sweeps up vast
quantities of American communications without a warrant. The
FBI then searches these data bases for Americans' information,
a backdoor search that bypasses the protections of the Fourth
Amendment. And section 702 has been abused under Presidents of
both political parties and has been used to unlawfully query
the communications of individuals and groups across the
political spectrum. These include searches of Members of
Congress and their donors, journalists and political activists,
more than 141 individuals protesting the murder of George
Floyd, and over 20,000 individuals associated with the events
of January 6.
In recent years, we have also seen the ever-growing
practice of law enforcement intelligence agencies circumventing
constitutional protections by purchasing access to data they
would otherwise need a warrant to obtain, including location
and internet search records. This is allowed to occur because
of gaps in the law, and the Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale
Act, which passed the House of Representatives with bipartisan
support last Congress, including from the Chairwoman and
Ranking Member of this Task Force, would have closed this
dangerous loophole.
More recently, National Security Presidential Memorandum 7,
or NSPM 7, has directed Federal departments and law enforcement
agencies to focus existing authorities to investigate and
disrupt civil society groups and nonprofits under false labels
of domestic terrorism. This strategy of investigating and
disrupting networks mirrors the exact abuses uncovered by the
Church Committee. It uses categories subject to political,
ideological, and racial bias to paint ordinary Americans as
threats.
Simultaneously, the Department of Homeland Security has
expanded its surveillance infrastructure through facial
recognition apps like Mobile Fortify, the use of spyware
technology, expanded use of StingRay technology, and nationwide
networks of automated license plate readers.
The question before this Task Force and Congress is whether
we will continue down our current path or whether we can change
course and conduct the kind of comprehensive investigation that
the current surveillance State demands. A new Church Committee
tasked with investigating the exercise and abuse of executive
power would represent the first comprehensive review of
Presidential authority in half a century. And the only
sustainable approach is principled oversight that constrains
executive power and related surveillance authorities,
regardless of who holds the office of the Presidency.
As Senator Frank Church himself warned, the capability at
any time could be turned around on the American people, and no
American would have any privacy left, such as the capability to
monitor everything. Telephone conversations, telegrams, it does
not matter, there would be no place to hide.
Thank you for your attention, and I welcome your questions.
Mrs. Luna. Thank you.
Pursuant to the previous order, the Chair now declares the
Task Force in recess, subject to the call of the Chair. We will
plan to reconvene immediately after Floor votes.
And this Committee stands in recess.
[Recess.]
Mrs. Luna. The Committee will come to order. I now
recognize myself for 5 minutes.
Mr. Wexler, if you could, over time, do you think that
there is some way to inform the American people about the
COINTELPRO type of activities more in depth without giving
unwarranted support for the kind of dirty tricks, unvetted
smut, et cetera, that none of us should have to hear about
people we respect, especially when it might not be true?
Mr. Wexler. I think there is definitely a way. I think the
way you do it is you delineate between process and substance,
and I use substance very loosely. So, if you want to say,
release information that says, in a file, right? On X day, this
agent planted this device in so-and-so's hotel room at 5:48 in
violation or contradiction to orders from the Attorney
General's Office. The public should get to see something like
that.
But right afterwards, you are going to probably have a
whole bunch of information that was obtained from what was
almost definitely--if you know anything about how the FBI
surveillance worked at that time--a grainy microphone in a
closed room that is interpreted by biased people who are out to
smear the people they are interpreting. Their bosses are on
their case to give them material that they can leak to the
media to smear somebody.
I would redact that stuff. You can tell me about the
process without giving me stuff that, as I could probably get
to in later points in time, I know of examples where they have
had obviously false information that it snowballed into even
worse false information, and it is in the files. And we do not
have people who are alive now who can even tell you that it is
false. And so that is my worry, that it is going to be just
continuing Hoover's dirty work for him.
Mrs. Luna. So, you would consider that, with
interpretation, as basically like planted information with the
intent to smear reputation?
Mr. Wexler. And not just planted. I mean, he is--it is not
like Hoover was discerning. If somebody went to him with really
bad information, the worse information it was, the happier he'd
be to put it in a file and then go over to some
Congressperson's office and say, hey, look at what I learned
about Martin Luther King or John Lennon or President Kennedy.
He was terrible with that. So, yes, that is--I would agree with
that.
Mrs. Luna. And can you remind us again what were the MURKIN
files and what was the MURKIN investigation?
Mr. Wexler. So, MURKIN--the FBI likes to abbreviate their
investigation. So, like the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist
Church is called BAPBOMB. MURKIN is the FBI shorthand for the
murder of Martin Luther King. It was the investigation that
emanated right after April 4. It was all 55 field offices in
the country, multiple field offices overseas, central
headquarters. They were all in what was large--one of the
largest manhunts, one of the largest investigations in FBI
history, dedicated to try and investigate the crime. And what
is so good about what is released is that material, even when
it is, you know, silly leads, it is all about the crime. It is
not about trying to smear Dr. King.
Mrs. Luna. Dr. King, I know that you had spoken earlier--
and thank you for being here again today--about the impact that
this had on your family specifically. But when Dr. King was
going through all this--I know with some of the files that have
come out, we know that the FBI was suggesting that he kill
himself and was using a smear operation, even going as far as
sending information to his wife. But you being, you know, a
little girl at the time, do you specifically remember--can you
speak to what you remember and how that impacted your family
from a personal perspective?
Dr. King. I can certainly definitely----
Mrs. Luna. Ma'am, please turn on your microphone so we can
hear you.
Dr. King. I certainly do remember. I have had 75 years of
these experiences. So, I was born in 1951. Around 1956 or so,
my uncle, Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., my father,
Reverend Alfred Daniel Williams King, they were brothers, they
were preachers together, young fathers, family men together.
So, very loosely, we and my own family experienced what we call
wiretaps. And their excuse for taping or tapping all of us,
Uncle M.L. and Daddy, they were brothers. They were in and out
of each other's houses, shared each other's telephones. So,
there ended up being files not only on Martin Luther King but
our whole family. And you could--in those days, the wires would
crackle, and you could hear the wiretaps, and we would know
that somebody was listening.
I do not know if you can imagine this, but I was a young
girl, 1963, I was 12, ``I have a dream'' speech. I grew up, had
little boyfriends and things, and got married the year after
Martin Luther King, Jr., was killed. So, I became an adult,
young woman. And so, my own little private conversations were
being listened to under the excuse of, we have got to hear what
Martin Luther King, Jr., is doing. So, this is not secondhand
information for me. It happened to our whole family.
Mrs. Luna. Mr. Hamadanchy, can you maybe speak to, there
was this intentional smear and, I think, excuse that Dr. King
was a communist. Can you speak to why he was branded as such
and how that might tie into what the NSA was doing with the
illegal surveillance of Dr. King?
Mr. Hamadanchy. Yes, I mean, I think that they--it was an
attack on the civil rights movement. And they were looking for
justification to try to illegally wiretap Dr. King. And so
obviously, we were in an era in this country where being a
communist was seen as being something who was a threat to
national security.
And this is the sort of thing we see where people violate
the constitutional rights of Americans, often with the idea of
there is a foreign intelligence purpose. And these are
obviously--these end up being defined fairly broadly, so pretty
much everything becomes a foreign intelligence purpose. And
many of the abuses we saw of Dr. King and other civil rights
leaders were along these lines, basically saying, oh, these
people are communists, so we can do whatever we want.
Mrs. Luna. I now recognize Ranking Member Jasmine Crockett.
Ms. Crockett. Thank you so much, Madam Chair.
The FBI and CIA illegally tapped phone conversations, as
Dr. King has laid out, bugged hotel rooms, and deployed
informants to build a case against Dr. King. As the de facto
leader of the civil rights movement, Dr. King became a threat
to the status quo, leading him to become the target of illegal
surveillance, which the released declassified documents further
highlighted. The justification for this illegal surveillance,
Dr. King was an anti-American for fighting to see the ideals
enshrined in the Constitution become a reality for all.
So, Mr. Hamadanchy, do you believe Dr. King's actions
warranted government surveillance?
Mr. Hamadanchy. Absolutely not. There was no justification,
no national security justification, no law enforcement purpose,
so no.
Ms. Crockett. It is almost as if the FBI should have used
its time and resources to investigate the countless threats on
Dr. King's life rather than attempting to discredit a man
working to fulfill the very tenets the agency claims to defend.
Today's political landscape proves that Dr. King's efforts are
just as needed as they were during his lifetime.
From day one, Trump has rolled back Federal protections of
civil liberties, destroyed the institutional integrity of our
Federal Government, and wielded law enforcement to do his
personal bidding. The Trump Administration is quick to deem
individuals from private citizens to elected officials as anti-
American. Their alleged crime? Daring to stand up and speak out
against this administration's illegal actions.
But you know what is anti-American? It is anti-American to
deport individuals without due process. It is anti-American to
strip thousands of their birthright citizenship. It is anti-
American to attack your enemies and send the DOJ after them.
So, again, I ask you, Mr. Hamadanchy, would you agree the
current administration is similarly weaponizing the government
against private citizens as it was done to Dr. King? And if so,
how?
Mr. Hamadanchy. Yes, I mean, I think we have seen
unprecedented abuses of executive authority under the current
administration. And part of the problem is, in the aftermath of
the surveillance of Dr. King, we saw a lot of reforms after the
Church Committee. And those reforms have broken down. And we
have seen a vast expansion of executive authority under
Presidents of both parties that this administration has now
taken and supercharged in a way that we have not seen for a
very long time.
Ms. Crockett. Today, we are supposed to be voting on a bill
as it relates to ICE specifically. And there are reports that
ICE is now just monitoring random citizens with no warrants, no
nothing, just monitoring. You would agree with me that that is
similar to the actions that were taken by the Federal
Government as it relates to Dr. King?
Mr. Hamadanchy. Yes, I mean, I think we are seeing tools
that ICE is using like facial recognition technology. And when
you scan someone with facial recognition technology, you do not
know if that person is in America or not, so it is absolutely
being used on U.S. citizens.
And the second thing is, these sorts of technologies end up
not being cabined within one particular law enforcement agency.
ICE is using it today, but tomorrow, there is going to be other
law enforcement agencies using it against Americans in ways
that Members of both parties would probably disagree with.
Ms. Crockett. Thank you. Exactly. This administration is
pulling from the tired old playbook of bigotry, trying to undo
the work that has been done in the name of civil rights and
economic advancement. Prices are higher. Housing is
unaffordable. You could be illegally detained as an American
citizen, or worse, murdered for standing up to an
administration hellbent on ripping away the humanity and
dignity of our neighbors.
And since I have extra time, which I never have, you know,
listen, I am so afraid for our country right now. And it is
because I have never been one of those people that has said we
should not teach Black history. We should teach Black history.
Black history is American history. We should know the real
stories. And I think that is why declassification matters. We
should know what the Federal Government was doing as it relates
to someone who was so integral to making sure that civil rights
became a reality not just for Black Americans. Everybody
benefited from civil rights being passed. And so, it is so
counterintuitive that this administration, on one hand, is
like, let us declassify, while at the same time, they are doing
the very same things, if not more.
I mean, the idea that--and I do not know if we are aware of
how much of this was going on, but we know that in the Jim Crow
South, that there were things that people had to worry about
such as law enforcement using the water hoses and using the
dogs on people that were simply trying to exercise their
constitutional rights. Is that correct, Mr. Hamadanchy?
Mr. Hamadanchy. I think there were definitely lots of
abuses, like you said, at that time.
Ms. Crockett. Yes. And sadly enough, it seems like instead
of us moving forward, we are only moving backward. So,
hopefully, declassifying this, hopefully, we can take this as
an opportunity to learn from what actually caused harm in our
country because I appreciate what Mr. Wexler said about
actually bringing people together in the aftermath and the work
that the King family did. I am calling on our country to become
unified because right now, the hate is destroying us.
Again, as we just celebrated MLK Day, the best thing that
we can do to honor MLK is to see the humanity in our fellow
citizens, as well as those that are immigrants and actually
decide that we are going to be on the side of humanity. So,
thank you.
And with that, I will yield.
Mrs. Luna. I ask unanimous consent for Representative Tlaib
of Michigan to be waived onto the Task Force for today's
hearing for the purpose of asking questions.
Ms. Crockett. No objection.
Mrs. Luna. Without objection, so ordered.
I now recognize Representative Lee for 5 minutes.
Ms. Lee. I was not expecting that, but thank you so much,
Madam Chair.
I think the thing that we need to remember during this
hearing is that these files would not even exist if the Federal
Government had not abused its surveillance powers and gone
after private citizens like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The FBI
ruthlessly and persistently surveilled Dr. King and his family,
even in their own home and without any kind of warrant. It is
only thanks to the work of journalists and government
investigators of the 1960s and the 1970s that we know that the
FBI weaponized its COINTELPRO program to spy on, to harass, and
to intimidate Dr. King and many other civil rights leaders and
figures. In 1976, the Senate Church Committee found that the
FBI used COINTELPRO to go after civil rights groups who were
fighting for integration and enfranchisement.
Mr. Hamadanchy, the FBI did not just surveil and collect
information, did they? Can you tell us how the FBI weaponized
this information against Dr. King and other civil rights
leaders?
Mr. Hamadanchy. They were trying to politically smear these
leaders because they were trying to discredit the civil rights
movement. And so, they were trying to create accusations
against them that would do that. And the most important thing
to note that pretty much anyone that was surveilled in
COINTELPRO was never actually charged with a crime.
Ms. Lee. Thank you. And did these types of tactics stop
after the Church Committee's findings?
Mr. Hamadanchy. The Church Committee findings were, at the
time, pretty groundbreaking, and the reforms that we put into
place did work in the aftermath. But that was 50 years ago, and
things have changed a lot like that, and those oversight
structures are no longer good.
Ms. Lee. Thank you. In fact, there are even more ways that
the Federal Government can exploit laws now to surveil private
citizens. Post 9/11, of course, a number of new laws gave the
government a whole slew of tools to do the same thing in the
name of national security. We saw these tactics used against
Black Lives Matter protesters. We saw them used against student
protesters supporting a cease-fire in Gaza. Now we are seeing
it used against anti-ICE protesters.
The Federal Government is also using AI and spyware to
better surveil private citizens, which is why I demanded
answers from Secretary Noem on ICE's contract with a spyware
company whose surveillance product has the ability to access
people's cell phone data without their knowledge or their
consent.
The Fourth Amendment protects people in this country from
unreasonable searches and seizures. Yet for decades, the
Federal Government seems to throw that right out of the window
when it is Black or it is Brown people who exercise their First
Amendment rights to free speech or peaceable assembly. Time and
time again, these movements are portrayed as terrorists, are
violent, rioters, or simply anti-or un-American, all to give
the Federal Government the excuse that their unlawful actions
are in the interests of national security.
So, the Federal Government cannot be allowed to violate
people's rights under the cover of darkness. We would not even
know about the Federal Government's actions against Dr. King or
the COINTELPRO operation if it was not for strong oversight, so
we need to continue this important oversight work, which is
why, today, Rep. Jonathan Jackson and I are introducing the
COINTELPRO Full Disclosure Act. This bill will require the
public disclosure of all COINTELPRO records and establish a
review board to ensure compliance.
So, Madam Chair, I invite you and, of course, the rest of
our colleagues to join me in this effort and I think in an
attempt to ensure that there is no government overreach on
private citizens. I would love if we could have your support
for that.
Mrs. Luna. I will take a look at it. I do not have any
objections.
Ms. Lee. Thank you. We will definitely get that to your
team, and we appreciate you looking.
Mrs. Luna. Okay.
Ms. Lee. And with that, I yield back.
Mrs. Luna. Thank you very much.
I now recognize Representative Tlaib from Michigan for 5
minutes.
Ms. Tlaib. Hi. Thank you all so much for this. You know, I
am not on this Committee, and I appreciate the Chairwoman
waiving me on because what I witnessed the last two years was
very reminiscent of the targeting of Dr. King, and not only
spying, but the attack on his moral character. And I know Dr.
King here knows what I mean. You know, not only racializing,
but using ways to tear him down, to divide the community that
has been behind the civil rights movement.
And so, you know, as a Palestinian-American serving in
Congress, I am seeing ACLU and others representing folks right
now that the government--in expressing their First Amendment,
the government targeting people who have expressed their First
Amendment right around boycott, apartheid governments,
genocidal governments.
And so, Mr. Hamadanchy, right now, private citizens are
being spied on. Is that correct?
Mr. Hamadanchy. Yes, the government, through many different
programs, is gathering lots of communications in Americans, and
they have accessed that communication without a warrant.
Ms. Tlaib. And have you, in the ACLU, witnessed them also
targeting students?
Mr. Hamadanchy. I would say that we cannot--I cannot point
to specific abuses that happen with students, but almost
certainly. And one of the things we have actually seen with
students in particular is the use of social media monitoring--
--
Ms. Tlaib. Yes.
Mr. Hamadanchy [continuing]. So, using algorithmic tools--
--
Ms. Tlaib. Using technology to----
Mr. Hamadanchy [continuing]. To actually monitor what they
are saying in social media and then acting on that.
Ms. Tlaib. So, what I witnessed is, you know, the targeting
by the Federal Government and surveilling the Muslim community
in the way they have, targeting people that maybe are of means
that have been investing in, you know, organizations that have
been trying to end the genocide. They have approached me
several times about different ways that the Federal Government
has put them on no-fly lists, have targeted them, have, you
know, indirectly or directly made accusations, again, in a way
that I think, similar to Dr. King, is like discrediting them
and making them kind of go silent, right? The fact that Hoover
is a dangerous threat, that, you know, Dr. King is this or that
so that people can, again, not allow him to be in space and
again, tear down his character.
I am seeing that, though, happening to people in my own
community that are standing up against, you know, a foreign
government, for instance, or against, you know, different form
of war crimes and international human rights violations.
And I do not know--Dr. Hamadanchy, I know that you guys
just won a case recently. You know this. And most of these
students are telling me that it is the university working with
the Federal Government and surveilling them and targeting them.
And these are not people like Dr. King, who had a movement
behind him, right? It still was hard, and Dr. King here, you
know, is a witness to that. But these are students that have no
access to means, and they are relying on, you know, us Members
of Congress to defend their First Amendment right.
But I think it is just important for the American people to
know, Dr. King is the one that a lot of people talk about. But
just in a few years, in 2024 and 2025, you saw the increase of
campuses and organizations working with the Federal Government
to use various means to surveil and target and terrorize
students.
Mr. Hamadanchy. I would say, in--particularly in the post-
9/11 era, we have seen a vast expansion of programs like the No
Fly List, like surveillance--many, many different surveillance
programs. And part of that is the overstrike structures that we
built into place since the 1970s have completely broken down.
Ms. Tlaib. Do you know for a fact--and I have asked this
before--anybody on the No Fly List, anybody on campuses that
have been targeted, have they even been charged with a crime?
Mr. Hamadanchy. It is often the case that someone can be on
the No Fly List or could be surveilled by the government
without ever being charged with a crime.
Ms. Tlaib. Yes. With that, just for the Chairwoman to know,
I can bring in one by one people, businessmen, women who work
in the education field, others that have come to my office who
continue to be put on the No Fly List, not told why, not even
given a process to get reviewed. And again, it has been
incredibly painful because they feel like the government is
watching them, surveilling them, putting them on a list, and
they have no way to defend themselves or to be able to
understand why. And I think it is something we should look
into. And again, a majority of them are Muslim, but they always
start with one community, and they will get to the next, and
the next, and the next because they disagree with them
politically.
Thank you so much, and I yield.
Mrs. Luna. I now recognize Representative Burlison from
Missouri.
Mr. Burlison. Thank you. I want to thank the witnesses for
being here today. And thank you, Madam Chair, for your support
of transparency. And really, I want to thank our President for
his efforts to be the disclosure President.
As many of you know, and the reason why we are here under
his executive order, we have had over 240,000 classified
documents released. These documents pull back the curtain on
the surveillance that was, you know, heavy-handed and toward--
and before, leading up to Dr. King's assassination in 1968. And
we are talking about wiretaps. We are talking about bugging
hotel rooms in trying to get informants within his circle, all
run by his own government that they are supposed to be
protecting his rights.
Look, at the end of the day, I think they went--what is
interesting is the impact maybe still goes on today. And so, I
was going to ask the witnesses first and foremost, Mr. Wexler,
do you see similarities to what happened at the time that Dr.
Martin Luther King was assassinated and the heavy hand of the
surveillance state? Do you see similarities to what we are
facing today?
Mr. Wexler. So, a lot of what I am here for, particularly,
is about Dr. King's assassination. And a lot of those 250,000
files, I have been through them. Almost none of them actually
deal with the surveillance on Dr. King. I am well aware of what
the surveillance was on Dr. King. I am hoping that we could
talk about what can be done to release even more information on
his assassination if Congress unseals the records from the
House Select Committee on Assassinations.
To your question, Representative Burlison, it is a little
bit outside of my area of expertise, but there is no question
that technology now has made it infinitely easier not just for
the government but for private companies to surveil people, and
so it--that is something that definitely concerns me.
Part of what I am trying to do here is to suggest a way
forward on the assassination files where we can release the
material on King's assassination that the executive order
focuses on, the assassination. Release that material from the
House's investigation in the 1970s without reflexively
releasing information that, again, I hope I can answer some
questions about this----
Mr. Burlison. Yes, I think what----
Mr. Wexler [continuing]. Is not even true about Dr. King.
Like, that is my big concern is that we are--there is the
process of the surveillance, which is a terrible thing that
happened----
Mr. Burlison. But it all seemed to be trying to be trying
to point in a direction that really was not the reality, that
he was somehow, you know, connected to, or he was a communist
in some way or a socialist. And it was all trying to pin that
on him. But when you look at the documents that have been
released, they seem to indicate that he never had any of those
comments or thoughts.
Mr. Wexler. I mean, again, the documents are almost
entirely--the ones--the 250,000 that were released were exactly
what President Trump put forward in the executive order, which
is almost exclusively about the crime, like who was where,
when, what witnesses saw what, you know, what did the analysis
of the bullets say. There is not--there is just a small subset
that deals with the surveillance, Operation Merrimack, of some
of the civil rights and antiwar activities, which people forget
Dr. King was associated with, but it is not the salacious
stuff.
We know about the salacious stuff from other previous
sources, and it is partially why I am worried because, I agree
with you, Representative Burlison. A lot of the salacious
stuff, we would have no way of ever even verifying if it is
true because, unfortunately, a lot of the figures who would be
around to even talk about it do not even exist. It was obtained
illegally. It was obtained for the very purpose of smearing not
just him, but people like you folks in Congress, people in the
executive branch, Presidents of the United States. And a lot of
it was about trying to create a perception of people, like you
said, that was either completely untrue or at least a
distortion of the truth. J. Edgar Hoover was not discerning. I
would agree with you on that.
Mr. Burlison. Just looking at this--and I have read some of
your testimony that you are kind of trying to draw a line here
that there is a way to legitimately release these documents
without violating the interest of releasing material that might
be harmful to the King family.
Mr. Wexler. A hundred percent there is.
Mr. Burlison. And can you explain that, what that is?
Mr. Wexler. So, the material that I am most interested in--
there is some other stuff I can talk about. The stuff that I am
most interested in is the stuff that you folks are the ones who
are the only people who can release. President Trump cannot
release it. Courts cannot release it because it is sealed by
the Congress.
In the late 1970s, there was a concurrent investigation of
both the assassination of JFK and MLK. We have almost all of
the JFK files from that investigation. We have basically zero
from the MLK assassination. There is a misperception that there
is this absolute seal on the material. But there was a letter
that went with the seal. And that letter that went with the
seal gave the Clerk, at any given time--the Clerk of the House
of Representatives--the discretion to release files.
Now, I believe the Clerk should direct the archives, the
Legislative Archive Center in D.C.--it is not the one at NARA
2--to release the material, but selectively. And I talked with
the liaison, Danny Coulson. He is a fairly legendary figure in
FBI circles, who was the liaison between the House Select
Committee on Assassinations and the Justice Department. And he
concurred with my assessment, which is that is a very easy
thing to do, to release just the material that they got from
witnesses to the crime, from suspects and who were interviewed,
and take out the stuff that was likely, frankly, I believe,
probably sent to the--for the very purpose of keeping that
Committee from fully investigating, which is the smear stuff on
Dr. King. Those are almost exclusively located within files
under the FBI classification code with 100 and 105 under
section E of the final report.
You just say to the Legislative Archive, expedite the
release of all of the material on the assassination, the staff
interviews, staff reports, executive session testimony from
people who actually have information on the assassination. But
let us not--we could take our time. We could do a much more
deliberative process, however long it takes, with these 100 and
105 files and make sure we are not putting out--doing, again,
J. Edgar Hoover's dirty work for him. There is a way to do
that.
Mr. Burlison. Thank you.
Mrs. Luna. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Wexler.
Without objection, pursuant to rule 9(c), the minority and
majority shall have 10 additional minutes each for extending
questions.
Ms. Crockett. No objection.
Mrs. Luna. Without objection, so ordered.
So, I recently had the National Archives create an AI
search tool to assist with researchers being able to go through
all of these documents so you could type in a keyword and be
able to find something. So, I was doing some of my own
research, and I came across an interesting lead in regards to a
conspiracy with the assassination and the murder pertaining to
MLK. So, here is I guess the series number, and I will be
entering it into the archives.
Ms. Crockett. No objection.
Mrs. Luna. And specifically to this, the reason why I am
bringing this up is Dr. King, there was famously a hearing
where the King family was awarded, I think it was, you know, a
nominal--I think it was like $1 or something for basically
admission that there was a conspiracy to assassinate Dr. King.
Based on what I am reading here, the FBI did investigate and
followup with three specific witnesses, but I do not know that
the DOJ ever followed up after that. And for whatever reason,
whether it was racially motivated or not, this investigation,
which I think is a pretty important thing based on what I am
seeing in these documents, was not, I guess, closed out fully.
Can you please speak to that settlement and then also to how
the lack of transparency surrounding the murder of Dr. King
impacted public's trust in government?
Dr. King. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. It is quite a
privilege. Let me first thank you for making it easier for
people to access that number--the file number where we can get
the information. We really appreciate that.
Also, I wanted to mention an individual's humanity does not
diminish their impact on the world because I have heard little
subtle thoughts about that. But as human beings, we want the
world to be a better place.
Also, the King family really appreciated the 45th
Administration and now the 47th Administration in focusing on
what really happened without all of the other issues and things
that people want to hear, the salacious things. We are very
grateful for the way that this administration is handling that.
And so just as a member of a family--and many of you, I
imagine, never had a family member gunned down and shot down.
That is my uncle. Then my father, choked and thrown in a
swimming pool mysteriously, my father. My grandmother, playing
the organ and shot down playing the Lord's Prayer in church.
So, many of you have never experienced that.
And at the same time, from the time I was born to today,
you know, in those years in the 1950s and the 1960s, knowing
that every conversation is recorded. Somebody's following you
and watching you.
And so, I think the transparency, although there were a lot
of pages that my family is still trying to go through as well,
that is a lot. But I think transparency and truth are so
important.
You know, this is a time when our Nation feels deeply
divided, and this moment offers an invitation to unity, to
prayer, renewed commitment to those ideals that bind us
together. So, as someone--like I say, I could not even get a
telephone call from a little guy who said, can we go get an ice
cream cone without wondering who is listening to that phone
call. So, I think this is helpful, and I want to say thank you.
Mrs. Luna. Thank you, Dr. King.
And Mr. Wexler, to I guess then address the elephant in the
room, to follow on to Dr. King's response there, do you believe
the elements within the U.S. Government plotted to murder
Martin Luther King, or are people justified in their skepticism
in wanting answers specifically to that? It is not my objective
to peddle conspiracy theories, but it does seem evident, based
on what we are seeing with the declassified documents, that
there was a targeted campaign by the Federal Government against
a civil rights leader. And it also to me, based on what we are
seeing, for example, in that one document that I showed you
guys, that I do not believe that there is adequate followup in
some of these very serious leads pertaining to a conspiracy to
assassinate Dr. King.
Mr. Wexler. A couple of things. So, the answer to those
questions might seem counterintuitive. I cannot eliminate the
possibility that there was elements of the government connected
to the assassination of Martin Luther King. My book does not
argue that that was the main source of what ultimately killed
him. What I cannot do because I know of at least two instances
in 1968 that are virtually indisputable where the government
knew in advance of two individuals, one a civil rights figure,
one somebody who we probably would not particularly like, and
they----
Mrs. Luna. Who is the person we would not like?
Mr. Wexler. He was one of the chief terrorists for the
White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan of Mississippi. And in both
instances, the other person was Fred Hampton, and people
probably find him controversial in some cases. From Chicago,
there was a movie recently made about him. In both instances--
and again, I may have serious problems with what the former
chief terrorist for the White Knights of Ku Klux Klan was up to
in 1968, but the government should not be setting you up to be
shot. And in both instances, that is essentially what happened.
They did not do the shooting themselves, but they basically put
out the information and the red meat to people who--in law
enforcement who were basically itching to do something.
Mrs. Luna. So, you do think that it is possible that the
Federal Government either had former knowledge and/or pushed
people in the right direction in order to commit the
assassination of Dr. King?
Mr. Wexler. So, a key part of my book is that they were
told in advance of what I believe was the plot that was
eventually successful. They seemed to have----
Mrs. Luna. On Dr. King?
Mr. Wexler. On Martin Luther King. I do not know if it was
a matter of incompetence that they did not take it seriously.
That is absolutely possible in the U.S. Government. But I also
know they had informants that they tried to protect. They did
not take things seriously. And I know that J. Edgar Hoover
probably was not unhappy with what happened on April 4. So, I
cannot eliminate it. The files, though, that we are looking
for, that I am sort of asking from the House Select Committee
on Assassinations, they may be able to clarify that.
And to your second question, because of the way Hoover
behaved, because of the way the FBI behaved in the 1960s,
because of the doubts we have about the JFK assassination, I
think--and because of what the Black community especially
experienced for decades, murders going unsolved over and over
and over again--I can maybe talk about the Civil Rights Cold
Case Records Review Board eventually--you are absolutely
justified in at least asking the question, did the government
have a role? So, we should do everything we can to clarify that
one way or the other.
Mrs. Luna. So, just so you know, I actually just instructed
the staff, so we will be following up with the National
Archives and trying to obtain those HSCI documents that you are
talking about, obviously not releasing information that was
illegally obtained to smear Dr. King but to look at
specifically the elements of the investigation and abuses of
authority and power. So, we will be obtaining those. We have
been pretty successful, just so you know and so investigators
and the King family knows as well.
Dr. King, I have about 2 minutes and 29 seconds left in my
time remaining before I go to Representative Burchett and then
the hearing will end, so I would like to give that time to you
to share with the American people or to maybe ask anything of
us that you feel pertinent to this investigation.
Dr. King. I like to remember 1963, the night before
Mother's Day. And my mother had prepared everything, and our
home was bombed. And I remember my daddy going out, standing on
a car, Reverend A.D. King. That was in Birmingham, Alabama.
``If you have to hit somebody, hit me, but I would rather you
go home and pray. My family and I are okay.'' And those were
the first years I was old enough to begin to understand that
there were people from other communities who were stirring up
anarchy.
And the way I met those people, the people who lived in the
community, went home, and they went home and prayed. And there
were strangers from outside of our community there who were
throwing bricks and turning over cars and things. And Daddy
talked about people--everybody does not want peace. Everybody
does not want love.
I cannot speak to whether it was a conspiracy or not. I am
not here--just to give you my own experiences. But I have
discovered that if we want peace and unity, Reverend Dr. Martin
Luther King said, ``We must learn to live together as
brothers,'' and all that, as sisters, ``and not perish together
as fools.'' I am reminded of my mother, who was a Democrat, and
then later in these years, I have been a Democrat, an
independent, and a Republican. And I used to work when I was a
State legislator with the Republicans. And they would be, you
are a Democrat. You cannot talk to them. Why can I not talk to
you? I did not know.
But there are people in America today who still want peace,
who still want unity, who still want love. And I can only urge
you, we are one blood, one human race. We all bleed the same.
Thank you, President Trump. That is true. I want us to come
together without fear, without hatred, without division. And I
remember my mother's words. She was so grateful and so tearful
when President Trump put their house that had been bombed on
the registry, and she thanked him. Well, Ms. Naomi, you are a
Democrat, do not thank him.
I think I want to stop there. But if we choose love over
hatred, truth over secrecy, and faith over fear, then the
sacrifices of those who came before us, including my uncle, my
father, will not have been in vain. Then my living shall not be
in vain. Your living will not be in vain as you work together.
Thank you.
Mrs. Luna. Thank you, Dr. King. And----
Ms. Crockett. I am going to do mine.
Mrs. Luna. Okay.
Ms. Crockett. I am going to do some of my 10----
Mrs. Luna. Okay. You are fine. You are fine.
Ms. Crockett. Well, wait a minute. Tim, you need to get
somewhere? Because I will let you go. You need to go somewhere?
Mr. Burchett. Did you want to say something? Do you want to
followup?
Ms. Crockett. Well, I am going to have to stay till the end
anyway. Go ahead.
Mr. Burchett. I cannot hear what she is saying.
Mrs. Luna. She has 10 minutes of questioning, but you can
go first is what she is saying before she does hers.
Mr. Burchett. Oh, Okay. Okay.
Mrs. Luna. I now recognize Tim Burchett for 5 minutes.
Mr. Burchett. Yes, it says 10 minutes. Do not give me that.
I will have an altar call up here. Yes. You know why they do
not let politicians--if you can find me some one-armed deacons,
I would be a pastor, but I do not trust them with two hands.
Thank you all for being here. I guess I am one of those on
the edge of the conspiracy theorist. And I was at Brushy
Mountain Prison. I saw James Earl Ray when I was a young man,
about 16. We used to minister to the guy who was on death row,
since been electrocuted in Tennessee. And I was always
reminded--I have read some books by the mob, and they always
have a scapegoat, and it is always a loner, kind of a nut. I
think some things need to be said. Ray was a two-bit criminal,
and they caught him in London, England. I mean, what I
understand, he did not have two nickels to rub together in
1968.
I remember we were going to Clarksville, Tennessee, and I
heard it on the radio. I remember it because they said they
were talking about President Kennedy and RFK, and then Martin
Luther King had been shot. And it did not register with me. I
was four years old, but I can remember. But I have since
studied it. And it is always a loner. It is always a nut. It
just seems to me it is just too dadgum convenient. And the mob
will tell you that is what they do. When they kill somebody,
they always have a scapegoat.
And I remember what a pastor friend of mine, who has never
voted for me, by the way, in Knoxville--and I am naming a post
office after him anyway, but it is because he is my dear
friend. And he was in Memphis. He worked for Dr. King. I guess
he was 17 or 18 years old. And I always remember--I was mayor
of Knox County. I went to the NAACP dinner that night, big
fundraiser, and, you know, they had me sitting at the head
table. And I asked Middlebrook where he was sitting, and he
said, they got me over here. And I said, well, Kelly and I, my
wife and I, we are going to sit with you. And he said, why is
that? And I said because you run with the one that brung you.
And I said, these kids are standing on your shoulders. They
think civil rights is something on the History Channel or
something.
And we would always have Middlebrook come eat dinner with
us, lunch with the young kids in my office at Calhoun's. And I
remember my dear friend Colonel Julian said, ``Preacher, how
many times were you arrested in Memphis?'' And he said,
``Colonel, I think about 37.'' And, you know, you just think
how things have changed and how, you know, we talk about how
bad they are. I will tell you what, in Knoxville, Tennessee,
east Tennessee, things are pretty good. Things are pretty good.
We are moving in a better direction, I feel like.
But I do feel like I do not--and is it true that some
members of the King family talked to James Earl Ray, and they
do not think that he pulled the trigger? Is that accurate,
ma'am?
Dr. King. My cousin, Dexter Scott King, is deceased.
Mr. Burchett. Yes, ma'am.
Dr. King. But during his lifetime, he was involved in some
of those discussions. I was not personally. But yes, I was
aware of that, yes.
Mr. Burchett. And Dexter was Dr. King's----
Dr. King. King's son, yes.
Mr. Burchett. His boy, yes, ma'am.
Dr. King. Yes.
Mr. Burchett. Okay. Yes. And I remembered very well when
James Earl Ray escaped from Brushy because Dr. King's daddy,
who was also a preacher, was in Tennessee at that time, just
totally out of--and they caught him. They caught James Earl Ray
just down the road. It was something. He did not get very far.
He was not that great of a criminal. He sure was not that good
of an escape artist.
But I am wondering, ma'am, why are certain pieces of the
surveillance--why do you feel like they are still under seal
until 2027? And something I worry about, anytime the--I do not
trust the government, and I am part of the government. And I do
not mind telling you that. But anytime we have our hands on
something, you know, whether it be Epstein files or whatever, I
have a hard time believing it. I have a hard time believing
anything these knuckleheads come in here and tell me, whether
we are in a skiff or anywhere else. They are so
compartmentalized, and they are so--you know, maybe they are
telling the truth, but it is the truth as they know it. And
they are looking down the barrel of a .22, and they need to be
looking down a trash can because I think it is that big. And I
am sorry I talk too much, but please.
Dr. King. May I answer it in this way? And I am only
speaking not for the whole family----
Mr. Burchett. Yes, ma'am.
Dr. King [continuing]. And certainly in a very unofficial,
personal capacity. There are so many people that are in those
reports, and I think that has been said, who are gone on
beyond. And so, since you cannot find them, and you cannot
verify, it would not necessarily make sense to have so much of
that, that we forget the purpose. And the purpose is to come
together in truth and unity.
Mr. Burchett. Yes.
Dr. King. So, that is just my thought. I cannot say that is
why, but that is what I think.
Mr. Burchett. Okay. And I have run over. Let me ask the
Ranking Member if I could just go a little bit. Now, I will
tell you this. I saw a lady walking down the hall from a far
distance, and she was wearing bright pink. And I said, where is
she going? And then she got closer. And I was about to say,
Jasmine, we are supposed to be in Committee. And then she got
closer, and I realized it was not Jasmine. So, if somebody
comes up to you and says, this idiot Burchett just--you know.
But anyway, she was lovely and dressed classy like you do, so I
wanted to say that for the record, and then ask you if I could
have a little more time.
Mrs. Luna. Yes.
Mr. Burchett. Okay, great.
Let me ask you, Mr. Wexler, and then maybe you, sir, what
are your thoughts on that?
Mr. Wexler. My thoughts on why the files are sealed? It is
a little bit of speculation, but I will give you a twofold
answer. One, it was self-serving for the FBI. There was a time
when, you know, the public was really outraged when we found
out that they were doing this stuff. And it is kind of, and
should be----
Mr. Burchett. Yes. Let me stop you right there----
Mr. Wexler [continuing]. Deeply embarrassing----
Mr. Burchett [continuing]. Real quick. I remember when we
were doing something on JFK--and Representative Luna is great
about bringing this stuff in. We had a doctor that was in the
emergency room with JFK, and he said--he even had a diagram.
And he showed the bullet--two different bullets coming from two
different directions in the diagram. Now, ten years ago, that
had been ABC, NBC, everybody would have blown it up. But that
is just what they do. They delay, delay, delay. And what Dr.
King said, I think, that these people die, and then there is
nothing out there, and then all we got is vapor. But sorry, go
ahead, sir.
Mr. Wexler. And then my second would be is that, you know--
--
Mr. Burchett. And this place ought to be filled up with
angry people right now. Angry Congresswomen and men ought to be
ticked off. I am sorry.
Mr. Wexler. And the second, I do think there is an element
where, as it gets later on in time to what I believe Dr. King
was getting at, where you start to say that you are releasing
information that never should have been collected in the first
place----
Mr. Burchett. I got you.
Mr. Wexler [continuing]. That you do not even know it is--
if it is true. And again, I could speak to you--if somebody
asked me about what happened to somebody named Reverend Ed
King, which was just outrageous, and I could explain that----
Mr. Burchett. Yes.
Mr. Wexler [continuing]. In a further question. And maybe,
you know, you start to realize, now we should not release this
stuff because we should never have taken and collected it and
put out this nonsense in the first place.
Mr. Burchett. It does not have anything to do with what is
going on or what went on.
Yes, sir?
Mr. Hamadanchy. Yes, I mean, I think the primary concern is
that it was illegally obtained and should never have been
obtained. And I think just generally, we should be careful
about releasing surveillance, even if it was lawfully obtained.
Mr. Burchett. I mean, even if it was legal----
Mr. Hamadanchy. Yes.
Mr. Burchett [continuing]. It does not make--I mean,
slavery technically was legal in this country, but it is the
most horrid thing that we ever did.
Mr. Hamadanchy. I would say, for instance, the legal
standard for obtaining metadata is lower. We would obviously
support raising that. But if someone collected your metadata
and they did it illegally, you would not want that released to
the public, even though it was collected unlawfully.
Mr. Burchett. Okay. I am out of time, but I do think this
was a cover up. And I remember, Dr. Middlebrook told me, he
said that they--and I am a gun guy, and that shot he made, had
one foot on a toilet and one foot in a bathtub, and he leaned
over to make the shot. And the next day, they had cut all the
brush out from that flophouse that Ray was in, in front of it.
And I have talked to so many people from Memphis I served in
the legislature with, and they just think it has been covered
up, and I do not know if we will ever know on this side of
eternity.
But I want to thank you all. I am sorry I rattled.
Dr. King, thank you, ma'am. I appreciate your walk with
Jesus, and I appreciate your kind words that we had.
Thank you all for being here. Sorry.
Ms. Crockett. You are good to go.
I just want to add to the record--this was submitted to us.
To the Members of the Committee on Oversight and Government
Reform, we are here to answer the question, what do the
declassified MLK records reveal, and why do they matter? These
documents are significant because of what they reveal to the
American people about the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
I submit that there are three facts that the American
people need to know to contextualize these records. First, the
FBI is the main actor within this historical drama, not Dr.
King. The modern Freedom of Information and Privacy Act was
signed into law so the American people could petition for U.S.
Executive branch agency records to hold our government
accountable to the rule of law. When President Johnson signed
FOIA into law, he stated, ``This legislation springs from one
of our most essential principles. A democracy works best when
the people have all the information that the security of the
Nation permits.'' Americans should always read executive branch
agency records with an eye toward government malfeasance. Dr.
King is not the one on trial here. Rather, it is the actions of
the FBI.
Second, the American people need to know that the
declassified and classified MLK records reveal the extreme
measures the FBI undertook to destroy a private citizen due to
political and ideological differences. As both the U.S. House
Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the U.S. Senate
Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations, with respect
to intelligence activities revealed, the campaign to
investigate King was not based on criminal activity or
legitimate national security concerns.
Division 5 of the FBI, under the guidance of Special Agent
William Sullivan, concluded early in the investigation that
allegations of communist infiltration and collaboration were
unfounded. Surveillance persisted because of FBI Director J.
Edgar Hoover's personal animosity for King because King's
politics of freedom, justice, and equality for all, regardless
of race, ran counter to Hoover's politics. The FBI unleashed a
deliberate campaign to undermine a Black freedom movement under
the guise of national security. The investigation against King
was not conducted in good faith. Much of the information
contained in the files falls under the legal doctrine of fruit
of the poisonous tree.
In 1975, Deputy Associate Director James Adams testified
before a U.S. Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental
Operations with respect to intelligence activities, stating,
``There were approximately 25 incidents of actions taken to
discredit Dr. King. I see no statutory basis or no basis of
justification for the activity. The FBI was not gathering
information for prosecution or other legal ends.'' As Sullivan
noted in an FBI memo two days after King's ``I have a dream''
address, the Bureau considered it unrealistic to limit their
investigation to legalistic proof of, or definitely conclusive
evidence that would stand up in testimony in court or before
congressional committees. Instead, the FBI turned to wiretaps,
bugs, and clandestine monitoring to obtain or create personal
information the Bureau believed would discredit Dr. King. These
actions were extralegal by design and violated the Constitution
the FBI claimed to defend.
The American people need to understand that the information
the FBI claims to have uncovered was intended to coerce Dr.
King and to discredit him in the eyes of his wife, faith
communities, and the general American public. If such data was
not strong enough to stand up to scrutiny in a court of law
when it was obtained, we should seriously consider how it will
be unleashed and weaponized in a court of public opinion.
Finally, the American people need to know that the
declassified and classified records have living victims. While
Dr. King was the immediate target, the FBI's dragnet ensnared
so many more. The victims of this story are not abstractions.
They are living people who were denied privacy, dignity, and
justice. This includes the King children, two of whom are still
living. Since the King's family home telephone was wiretapped,
it is very likely that the voices, laughter, and cries of these
innocent children were heard, recorded, and documented by the
Federal Government simply because their father led a nonviolent
protest movement to push America to be true to its founding
documents.
We must always center the voices and rights of those
harmed. If we are serious about democratic accountability, no
matter which party is in power, then the disclosure of
executive branch agency records, such as those that are being
discussed this morning, must be accompanied by truth telling.
The American people must have all the information necessary to
maintain a functioning, deliberate democracy in which those who
govern are accountable to the governed. If not, this historical
saga we are discussing today will continue to haunt us in the
form of unchecked government power. Thank you.
This was a statement from Lerone Martin, director of the
MLK Research and Education Institute at Stanford University.
I then have a couple of UCs, and we can wrap. I ask for
unanimous consent to enter into the record an NBC News article
titled, ``Trump is Turning Dr. King's Dream Into a Nightmare.
Did Civil Rights Martyrs Die in Vain?''
Mrs. Luna. Without objection.
Ms. Crockett. I ask for unanimous consent to enter into the
record a New York Times article titled, ``The Many Political
Interpretations of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s Legacy.''
Mrs. Luna. Without objection.
Ms. Crockett. The next one is a Times article titled,
``With MLK Files Released, Trump Plays Fire With a Legacy Whose
Importance He Doesn't Fully Grasp.''
Mrs. Luna. Without objection.
Ms. Crockett. There is another one where it says, ``Trump
Says DEI Civil Rights Policies Hurt White People. Do They?''
Mrs. Luna. Without objection.
Ms. Crockett. This one is from the ACLU. It says, ``Trump's
Attempt to Roll Back Key Civil Rights Enforcement Tool.''
Mrs. Luna. Without objection.
Ms. Crockett. CNN article, ``Judge Deals Blow to Trump
Justice Department's Use of Civil Rights Act to Clean Voter
Rolls.''
Mrs. Luna. Without objection.
Ms. Crockett. And the final one is from the Southern
Poverty Law Center, and it is titled, ``Trump Executive Action
on Voting Explained.''
Mrs. Luna. Without objection.
Ms. Crockett. And with that, I will yield.
Mrs. Luna. In closing, I want to thank our witnesses once
again for their testimony today. I now yield to Ranking Member
Crockett for closing remarks.
Ms. Crockett. I yield back.
Mrs. Luna. I now recognize myself for closing remarks.
With that, and without objection, all Members will have
five legislative days within which to submit materials and
additional written questions for the witnesses, which will be
forwarded to the witnesses.
If there is no further business, without objection, this
Subcommittee stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:22 p.m., the Task Force was adjourned.]
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