The Justice Department is moving to unseal F.B.I. surveillance records of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. about two years before their court-ordered release. The request was made over the objections of the civil rights organization Dr. King founded, which fears details of his private life will be used to tarnish his legacy.
In a 28-page filing dated Monday, Ed Martin, the Trump-appointed interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, cited “strong public interest in understanding the truth about the assassination.” The materials could include the contents of wiretaps, hidden microphones and reports from agents.
The request represents a sharp reversal for the F.B.I. and the Justice Department, which have blocked or slow-walked the release of investigative files for decades under presidents from both parties. President Trump, who ordered the move, has floated alternative theories about political assassinations, stoking doubts about the role played by the bureau in perpetuating those theories.
A federal judge in Washington has yet to schedule a hearing on the motion.
In his filing, Mr. Martin said the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the civil rights organization based in Atlanta that Dr. King used as his base of operations, “currently opposes” the motion.
Mr. Martin, a far-right political activist who recently compared government diversity programs to the decades-long campaign of racist oppression and terror in the Jim Crow South, said he was following through on an executive order by Mr. Trump.
Dr. King’s relatives have raised questions about the federal investigation into his death, which concluded that it was the work of a lone racist assassin, James Earl Ray.