The Trump administration on Friday released thousands of documents relating to Amelia Earhart, the pilot who vanished while attempting to circumnavigate the globe, which it painted as an effort to improve transparency about her unsolved disappearance.
U.S. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard stated in a press release that her department was releasing documents — including a photograph and several records that were already publicly available, according to the New York Times — “to end the weaponization of intelligence and instead focus the Intelligence Community on finding the truth and telling the truth, and ensuring the safety, security, and freedom of the American people.”
Earhart, who was attempting to become the first woman aviator to fly around the world when her plane disappeared in 1937, has long been a focal point of professional historians and conspiracy theorists seeking to unravel a story steeped in mystery.
The documents were released after President Donald Trump, in September, called for all remaining classified records relating to the case to be made public.
“I have been asked by many people about the life and times of Amelia Earhart, such an interesting story, and would I consider declassifying and releasing everything about her, in particular, her last, fatal flight,” the president wrote on Truth Social.
“Amelia made it almost three quarters around the World before she suddenly, and without notice, vanished, never to be seen again,” Trump wrote, adding that the story of her vanishing “has captivated millions.”
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Gabbard said the agency will continue to add and declassify files alongside existing ones as they are discovered. It is unclear how many are in its possession.
Still, experts say that the majority of the files unsealed were already available, and that details of her final moments are well-documented elsewhere.
Richard Gillespie, the executive director of the International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery, told the New York Times that “a lot of the really good stuff on Earhart is not in the National Archives.”
“We’ve found it in other places and other archives and when we find stuff we put it up on our website,” which he told the U.S outlet was “undoubtedly the best resource for primary source documents on Earhart.”
Many government documents about Earhart have been available since 1995, following former president Bill Clinton’s reform of the declassification process.
Gillespie, who wrote the 2024 book One More Good Flight: The Amelia Earhart Tragedy, said there was nothing new in the documents release. “It’s all out there,” he explained.
The Trump administration unsealed the Earhart documents months after it released thousands of files related to other high-profile American figures, including ones containing information about the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.
The King family criticized the release of the files in July and accused the president of attempting to divert attention from intensified interest in his relationship with the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
King’s living children, Martin III, 67, and Bernice, 62, said they “support transparency and historical accountability” but “object to any attacks on our father’s legacy or attempts to weaponize it to spread falsehoods.”
During his presidential campaign, Trump also vowed to release files related to former president John F. Kennedy’s 1963 assassination and signed an executive order to declassify the JFK records when he assumed office in January, along with files associated with Robert F. Kennedy’s and King’s 1968 assassinations.
The government unsealed the JFK records in March and shared some RFK files in April.
The release of Earhart’s files coincides with renewed attention on Epstein and Trump after Democrats released unseen email exchanges between the sex offender and several of his high-powered friends, including Ghislaine Maxwell, that mentioned Trump by name.
On Wednesday, a petition filed in the House of Representatives to force a vote that would compel the Justice Department to release the Epstein files received its final signature, triggering the action. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson confirmed that the vote would take place next week.
Late Sunday, after fighting the vote proposal, which a growing number of those in his own party support, Trump wrote on Truth Social, “we have nothing to hide, and it’s time to move on from this Democrat Hoax perpetrated by Radical Left Lunatics in order to deflect from the Great Success of the Republican Party.”
It is a rare example of Trump backtracking because of opposition within the GOP. In his return to office and in his second term as president, Trump has largely consolidated power in the Republican Party.
— With files from the Associated Press
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