Robert F. Kennedy Jr. allegedly lied to Congress last year during his confirmation hearings, according to a new report from The Guardian and The Associated Press. Now a senior Democrat is calling for an investigation into the Health and Human Services secretary, whose tenure over the nation’s top health agencies has been marked by scandal, food tainted by “explosive diarrhea” parasites and record-breaking measles outbreaks that continue to spread across the U.S.
It was actually Kennedy’s influence on a measles outbreak in Samoa that hinges on the alleged lie. In 2018, after a bad batch of the MMR vaccine resulted in two children’s deaths in Samoa, the government halted all vaccinations for 10 months. Predictably, measles cases surged in an outbreak that killed 83 people, most of them children under 5. But between then, Kennedy visited the island, which many saw as an effort to embolden anti-vaccine advocates and influence the government’s response.
Last year, when Kennedy was before Congress, he was repeatedly asked about his 2019 trip. He insisted it had nothing to do with vaccines, even as he led an anti-vaxx non-profit. But two letters recently obtained by The Guardian and AP indicate that’s not true.
“Kennedy, then a prominent anti-vaccine activist, preceded the visit with a letter to the Samoan prime minister requesting to study the Pacific island nation’s measles, mumps and rubella vaccines after the deaths of two children who had received them,” AP reported. “In the letter, he used the words vaccine or vaccination eight times.”
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Now Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., is calling for an criminal investigation into Kennedy. “RFK’s platform is built on lies and grifts that leave a trail of dead children in their wake. There are consequences for lying to Congress,” Wyden said, according to The Guardian.
Similarly, American Oversight, a government watchdog group, sent a letter Thursday demanding the Department of Justice immediately open an investigation. Others, like Sen. Angela Alsobrooks, D-Md., called for Kennedy to resign or be fired.
“Lying to Congress is a crime, whether or not the witness is under oath,” Josh Chafetz, a professor of law and politics at Georgetown University Law Center, told The Guardian. “But this would require the executive branch to prosecute, and Trump’s [justice department] is unlikely to do so.”
Meanwhile, Republican efforts to prosecute Dr. Anthony Fauci for contempt of Congress seem to have hit a wall, according to the Wall Street Journal, reporting that “some administration officials are skeptical that the current approach is procedurally sound enough to indict him for failing to answer questions before lawmakers, according to people familiar with the matter.”