Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s sister, Kerry Kennedy, slammed the Trump administration and her brother over the weekend for the release of 10,000 pages of documents —including graphic autopsy photos — related to the assassination of her father, the former senator and Democratic presidential candidate, Robert F. Kennedy.

Is her public angst a move to save the Kennedy Democratic legacy as her brother, President Trump’s secretary of Health and Human Resources, seeks to dismantle or improve — depending on whom you ask — America’s healthcare system? Or is this the heartfelt expression of a daughter not wanting the autopsy photographs of her father released to the public?

The Trump administration released a trove of previously classified documents on Friday related to the June 5, 1968 assassination of Robert F. Kennedy. These include eyewitness statements, crime scene photographs, and handwritten notes from the assassin, Sirhan Sirhan, who is serving a life sentence in a California penitentiary.

“It was hard to be an 8-year-old girl who lost her father to a man with a gun. It was hard to absorb that violence,” Ms. Kennedy posted to X on Saturday. “As of yesterday — Good Friday — it will be hard in a new and unimaginable way.”

“Anytime I, or one of my siblings, children, nieces, or nephews, come across images of my father — the man who hugged me every morning and kissed me goodnight — we won’t just see him as we remember him. Instead, we’ll be confronted with graphic, explicit photos of his mangled body from an autopsy report. This pain is hard,” Ms. Kennedy posted.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. pushed on the campaign trail for the release of the files and those related to the assassination of his uncle, President John F. Kennedy. The latter files were released last month, though they did little to appease proponents of the myriad conspiracy theories surrounding the president’s 1963 murder. President Kennedy’s grandson, Jack Schlossberg, spoke out against the release of the JFK files.

Mr. Kennedy has expressed doubt that Sirhan acted alone in the murder of his father. He visited his father’s assassin in prison in 2018 and pushed for his release. Governor Newsom denied Sirhan parole in 2022 after the state’s parole board recommended it. “Lifting the veil on the RFK papers is a necessary step toward restoring trust in the American government,” Mr. Kennedy said Friday in a statement.

Like the JFK files, though, the RFK files — at least those released so far — are unlikely to quash debate about who committed the crime. Handwritten notes from Sirhan show he wanted to kill Mr. Kennedy. “RFK must be disposed of like his brother was,” one note reads. He also wrote “RFK must die” in a notebook.

Yet there are other pieces of evidence onto which those who doubt the official narrative will no doubt seize. There are references to a woman in a polka-dot dress and someone shouting “we shot him” at the scene. FBI documents also describe interviews with tourists who visited Israel in May 1968, a month before the assassination, who say they heard a tour guide say Mr. Kennedy was shot. Israel also became the boogeyman to some online after the JFK files were released.

“Nearly 60 years after the assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy, the American people will, for the first time, have the opportunity to review the federal government’s investigation thanks to the leadership of President Trump,” Mr. Trump’s Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, said in a statement. “I extend my deepest thanks to Bobby Kennedy and families’ support.”

Ms. Kennedy refutes this. “I did not support this,” she posted to X, along with Ms. Gabbard’s remarks. “The Trump administration may think they can bury us with pain, but we will rise from it, louder and fiercer than ever.”

In the same post, Ms. Kennedy also attacked the Trump administration for other, unrelated actions. “I know countless others are suffering even more under the Trump administration’s relentless, callous cruelty. Think of Kilmar Ábrego García and his family. Think of the countless families torn apart by renewed separation policies. Think of federal employees who lost their jobs and those who remain living in fear. Think of transgender Americans stripped of dignity and care,” she posted.

“This is of concern to her and her family’s legacy,” a Democratic strategist, Hank Sheinkopf, tells The New York Sun. “The obsessive interest in the Kennedys has been part of American culture for 70 years.”

“It’s not that they’re in decline, it’s that they’re never going to be out of public view,” he says.

Ms. Kennedy posted a scathing statement from her family about her brother in August after he endorsed Mr. Trump. “Our brother Bobby’s decision to endorse Trump today is a betrayal of the values that our father and our family hold most dear. It is a sad ending to a sad story,” she posted.  

After November’s election, Ms. Kennedy told CNN, “I love Bobby.” Yet she replied, “No,” when asked whether she trusted him to manage the nation’s healthcare.