Kathrine Frich
The lawmakers demanded a wide range of records.
Old emails and forgotten letters have a funny way of resurfacing at the worst possible moment.
In politics, a paper trail from years ago can sit quietly until power shifts hands.
Now, one top official is finding out that past promises under oath never really expire.
A new Senate probe
Two Democratic senators are investigating whether Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. lied to Congress about a 2019 visit to Samoa. According to the Associated Press and the Irish Star, Oregon Senator Ron Wyden and Maryland Senator Angela Alsobrooks opened the inquiry on Wednesday.
In a letter sent to Children’s Health Defense, the anti-vaccine nonprofit group that Kennedy used to lead, the lawmakers demanded a wide range of records. As reported by the AP, the senators want files tied to his 2019 Samoa travels, his 2024 run for president, and his Senate confirmation hearings last year.
This inquiry is part of a much broader wave of investigations aimed at the Trump administration after Democrats won back both the House and the Senate in the midterm elections, according to the AP.
Wyden is lined up to lead the powerful Senate Finance Committee, which oversees Kennedy’s health agency, once the new Congress takes over in January.
Eight mentions of vaccines
The whole dispute comes down to what Kennedy told lawmakers before he got the job.
During his confirmation process last year, the AP and The Guardian reported, Kennedy repeatedly told senators that his trip to Samoa ahead of a deadly measles outbreak had “nothing to do with vaccines.”
Documents published in August by the AP and The Guardian painted a very different picture.
Before flying to the island nation, Kennedy sent a letter to the Samoan prime minister on Children’s Health Defense stationery. In that single message, according to the two outlets, he wrote the words “vaccine” or “vaccination” eight separate times.
Firing back at critics
Federal health officials are pushing back hard against the allegations. According to the AP, the Department of Health and Human Services maintains that the 2019 trip “was unrelated to vaccines.”
Back in August, the agency gave a fiery response when the AP asked about the letters.
The department stated that “any claim or insinuation based on these letters that Secretary Kennedy lied under oath or to Congress is not only false but outright defamatory.”
