Donald Trump’s health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, is facing potential legal trouble after a Democratic senator opened an inquiry into whether the lied to Congress, citing reporting by the Guardian. Here’s more, from the Guardian’s Michelle R Smith:
A top Democratic senator has launched an investigation into evidence that Robert F Kennedy Jr “unlawfully lied” in his 2025 confirmation hearings to become the US health secretary, citing a report by the Guardian.
Ron Wyden of Oregon, the incoming chair of the powerful Senate finance committee, is seeking extensive records from Children’s Health Defense (CHD), the non-profit anti-vaccine group Kennedy has used as a vehicle to fuel his political rise, including all documents related to a 2019 trip Kennedy took to Samoa.
“We are beginning an investigation into evidence that Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F Kennedy, Jr unlawfully lied to Congress on multiple occasions,” Wyden said in a letter to the group that was sent on Wednesday and obtained by the Guardian. The letter was also signed by Angela Alsobrooks, a Democratic senator from Maryland.
In the letter, the two lawmakers cited reporting by the Guardian that indicated Kennedy lied about his reasons for going to Samoa in 2019, a trip that occurred just months before a measles outbreak killed 83 people in the Pacific island nation, mostly children under age five.
The trip, which Kennedy made as the chair and chief legal counsel of CHD, became one of the most criticized events in his career before he entered government. Critics, including Samoan officials, have said Kennedy’s presence emboldened anti-vaccine activists in Samoa, worsening a vaccination crisis. Kennedy has denied the allegations, saying he never gave any public statement about vaccines or discouraged Samoans from getting vaccinated.
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