NARA has posted three sets of documents related to the assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy in 2025. With one exception, none of these sets are part of the JFK Assassination Records Collection, so I haven’t posted any research notes on them.
After my recent note on the new MLK releases at NARA, however, I have decided for the sake of completeness to post a brief note on the new RFK releases as well.
The RFK releases and Trump’s Executive Order
We owe the new RFK releases at NARA to President Trump’s Executive Order 14176. This order calls for the release of records held by all executive agencies relating to the assassinations of JFK, RFK, and MLK.
It does not apply to Congressional records, so don’t expect to see HSCA records on the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. That would take an act of Congress.
The assassination of President Kennedy’s brother, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, was never the subject of a Congressional investigation, so there are no Congressional records on it. NARA’s releases so far have featured only FBI and CIA records.
We know from the ARC that other government agencies have records on RFK. Some of these could, perhaps, be called relevant to his assassination. Unlike the JFK Act of 1992, however, which provided an elaborate and detailed plan for the collection and release of records even distantly related to President Kennedy’s assassination, Trump’s executive order does not provide for an outside review or release of RFK assassination records.
As of late July 2025, there have been three releases of RFK records under the executive order. Perhaps there will be more in the future, perhaps not.
Three releases from NARA
The RFK records released so far have been in three sets, all available on NARA’s RFK webpage. According to the webpage description, these release include:
18 April 2025: 229 pdfs (10,185 pages)
7 May 2025: 1499 pdfs (64,686 pages), and 17 MP3 audio files
12 June 2025: 237 pdfs (9,653 pages)
The NARA webpage also includes release notes for the new releases, and links to other RFK material held by NARA.
The MFF collection of RFK assassination records
For those interested in more records, the Mary Ferrell Foundation website should be the first stop. The MFF webpage for RFK records is available here.
MFF has an extensive set of RFK assassination materials, include FBI records, Grand Jury records, the autopsy report, trial transcripts for Sirhan Sirhan, the man who killed Robert Kennedy, and extensive legal pleadings from Sirhan’s lawyers.
Overlap with the ARC
The most recent RFK release on 12 June included about 148 records from the ARC, as well as other previously unreleased CIA records on RFK. These include a 201 file, which holds biographical details of figures of interest to the CIA.
All the ARC records in this set here have already been released in full at NARA, but there are about 40 records this time which were previously unavailable online. Don’t get too excited: most of these are collections of newspaper clippings and other secondary (or tertiary) materials.
My two cents
As far as I can tell, the 12 June release of CIA records excludes no material referring to RFK by his regular CIA cryptonym, GPFOCUS. The release also includes no material from other Government agencies or organs such as the National Security Council or any of the military branches of government. It includes no material on RFK from the Church Committee investigations or the HSCA investigation. these are major deficiencies. If readers are interested in RFK’s role in JFK’s administration, they will have to look elsewhere.