Conspiracy theorists circle again following RFK file release

The White House's release of a tranche of documents related to the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy has renewed the fervor of conspiracy theories surrounding his death. Even some figures in the Trump administration seem to be trafficking in these theories.

What is in the files?

The 10,000 files, released on April 18, contain specific information about Kennedy's demise. The brother of former President John F. Kennedy was shot and killed in Los Angeles' Ambassador Hotel in 1968 while campaigning for president; the senator and former attorney general was seen as a frontrunner for that year's Democratic nomination. These documents join a slew of files on JFK released in March.

The new files have information from the FBI's investigation of the assassination, which ran parallel to the Los Angeles Police Department's case. They "contain numerous FBI interviews with people who were in the Ambassador Hotel's ballroom, and in the kitchen pantry, as well as those who had stayed behind in Kennedy's hotel suite," said The Washington Post. The files also contain never-before-seen images from the investigation, including a "set of autopsy photos taken during coroner Thomas Noguchi's examination on the day of Kennedy's death." Handwritten notes from Kennedy's assassin, Sirhan Sirhan, were also released.

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

It was "not immediately clear how many of the released records contained information that hasn't previously been made public," said the Post. The LAPD's investigation files, which include information from the FBI, were released the year of Kennedy's death and "have been closely examined by authors and researchers." People "shouldn't expect there would be a smoking gun in any of this," said Kennedy's son, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., to the Post.

Why are conspiracy theorists stirring?

RFK Jr.'s "smoking gun" comments have not stopped conspiracy theories from abounding — both about Robert F. Kennedy and John F. Kennedy, who was himself infamously assassinated in 1963. Many of these theories have been circulated by the government; Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said the "newly released batch of documents related to the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy raises 'more questions than answers,'" said ABC News.

Gabbard claimed in an interview that there were fresh questions due to "newly released records which include previously undisclosed FBI records about Sirhan's contacts prior to the killing," said ABC. And even RFK Jr. himself, while saying there is no smoking gun, has spread conspiracy theories about his father's death. The "first thing he was gonna do was to remove the clandestine services from the CIA and make the CIA what it was supposed to be, which was an intelligence gathering organization," RFK Jr. told CBS News in 2018. Anyone who "reads the autopsy report" may find it "hard to believe that Sirhan shot my dad, that his bullets hit my dad."

At the same time, RFK Jr. has claimed that the release of these files is a net positive. Lifting the "veil on the RFK papers is a necessary step toward restoring trust in American government," he said in a statement. These types of conspiracies are also coming from the highest levels of government. President Donald Trump has "championed in the name of transparency the release of documents related to high-profile assassinations," but has also "been deeply suspicious for years of the government's intelligence agencies," said The Guardian. These types of moves by Trump to declassify assassination records are "almost certain to fuel renewed speculation about a pivotal moment in Los Angeles and U.S. history," said the Los Angeles Times.