Democrat Calls for Criminal Probe of RFK Jr. for Lying in Confirmation Hearing

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) has called for a criminal investigation into Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., after the strongest evidence yet of Kennedy lying about his anti-vaccine campaigning during his Senate confirmation hearings has emerged — amid a fresh measles crisis spurred by his policies.

“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,” said Wyden, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee. It’s unlikely that the Trump administration would prosecute their own secretary, but Wyden said that he is pressuring Republicans to refer Kennedy to the Department of Justice for an investigation.

“And when Democrats retake the majority in the Senate, RFK will be at the top of the list of Trump officials the finance committee will hold accountable for endangering American families,” continued Wyden, who grilled Kennedy on his trip to Samoa during his confirmation hearings last year.

Kennedy repeatedly told senators that his visit to Samoa in June 2019 “had nothing to do with vaccines,” instead saying that he went to “introduce a medical informatics system that would digitize records.” But records show the trip was organized for him to advocate against the MMR vaccine, fueling an anti-vaccine movement in the country. In a measles outbreak just a few months after his visit 83 people died, most of them children.

In past months, email evidence from a U.S. embassy official in Samoa found that RFK Jr. lied, with the official saying that the “real reason” for his visit was to raise “health concerns associated with vaccinating (from his point of view).”

On Thursday, new reports revealed documents in which Kennedy personally detailed the purpose of the trip, contradicting his testimony.

“I am writing this letter to you in the hope that we might be helpful to the people of your great nation,” Kennedy wrote to Samoa’s prime minister. The letter is dated January 20, 2019, and is written on the letterhead of his anti-vaccine group, Children’s Health Defense.

He cited his debunked claim that the MMR vaccine causes adverse health effects, repeating a conspiracy theory that the vaccine caused two deaths in the country which were actually attributed to a nurse errantly mixing the vaccine with expired muscle relaxant.

“I would propose my team conduct detailed health informatics assessment in Samoa of what happened with your MMR vaccines,” Kennedy said.

Samoa’s then-prime minister, Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi, responded a month later welcoming Kennedy for an “independent health assessment of our MMR Vaccines.”

Samoan health officials said that his visit supercharged the anti-vaccine movement in the small island country, lending credibility to and amplifying anti-vaccine activists.

The new revelations, as well as his dismissal of two new measles-related deaths in the U.S. this week, have once again spurred calls for Kennedy to be removed.

“This is a pattern, not a slip. RFK Jr. has lied to the Senate, lied to the American people, and jeopardized the health of children to advance his anti-vaccine agenda,” said Sen. Ed Markey (Massachusetts), the top Democrat on the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Subcommittee on Primary Health and Retirement Security. “He should never have been confirmed, and he cannot be trusted to run HHS for even one more day.”