Senators Call For RFK Jr.’s Resignation After More Emails Suggest He Lied In His Confirmation Hearings
There are plenty of reasons to call for RFK Jr. to resign or be fired. There are plenty of reasons to call for him to be investigated. There's his complete dereliction of duty when it comes to the American measles outbreak. There's his sneaky misrepresentations carried out as he moonlights on a government-funded cooking show that he puts out because... reasons. There's the budget and staffing cuts that have led to our lessened ability to respond to outbreaks of diseases like cyclosporiasis. There's the possible violation of the Hatch Act. There are the negative health outcomes stemming from his misinformation campaigns. There's also his disinterest and/or inability to follow basic governmental procedures.
But the latest calls for him to resign, be fired, or at least be investigated aren't about any of the above. Here are the comments from several senators. See if you can guess what this is about.
This is a pattern, not a slip," Sen. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) said in a statement. RFK Jr. has lied to the Senate, lied to the American people, and jeopardized the health of children to advance his anti-vaccine agenda."
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said ina social media post Fridaythat the documents were Proof we got RFK lying on the record during his confirmation hearing (a crime)." He called for the matter to be referred to the US Department of Justice for a criminal investigation. Ina separate statement to The Guardian, Wyden added that 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."
If you didn't manage to guess that this is all to do with what Kennedy told senators about his 2019 trip to Samoa in his confirmation hearings, don't feel bad. As we demonstrated above, there are plenty of things Kennedy has done that could have resulted in the quotes above.
We wrote about this trip Kennedy took to Samoa earlier this year, when reporting uncovered emails from several people involved in the trip indicating that Kennedy went there as part of his anti-vaxxer crusade. Why Samoa? Well, allow me to quote myself:
Itstarted in July of that yearwhen two 1-year old children who were given a measles vaccine subsequently died. While anti-vaxxers around the world gleefully jumped into action to blame the vaccine for those deaths, it turns out that the vaccine didn't kill the children at all. Instead, medical professionals had accidentally mixed the vaccine with a muscle relaxer solution instead of sterilized water like they were supposed to. Despite that fact, the anti-vaxxers sowed all kinds of fear and disinformation throughout the country, whipping up negativity around measles vaccines. As a result of that, the government put a 10 months ban in place on the vaccine.
It was during that ban that Kennedy visited the island, apparently to answer the question, How can I make this bad situation worse?" While there, he met with both anti-vaxxers and members of the Samoan government. But when asked during his confirmation hearings, he claimed that his trip had nothing to do with vaccines at all. He was there to help rollout a new medical record and tracking platform he was pitching. Two months after his trip, Samoa suffered a massive outbreak of measles that lasted months and eventually killed 83 people and sickened over 5,000.
Earlier this year, the AP and the Guardian uncovered emails sent by American and U.N. government staffers that suggested the trip Kennedy took was entirely about vaccines. These emails were all written by third-parties, however, and amounted essentially to what I wouldn't call speculation so much as a plain reading of the facts surrounding Kennedy's visit. But, still, these are third-party accounts.
Fortunately, both of those outlets didn't stop there. They kept digging. And what has the senators in this post's opening so furious are uncovered direct emails between Kennedy and Samoan government officials that make it abundantly clear that the whole point of the trip was for Kennedy and his team to investigate the MMR vaccine.
On Thursday, theAssociated PressandThe Guardianjointly released newly obtained documents that directly contradict Kennedy's statements. One of the documents is a letter Kennedy sent to Samoa's prime minister in January 2019, in which Kennedy falsely suggested deaths associated recently with MMR [measles, mumps, and rubella] vaccines" were due to a bad lot of vaccinations from the manufacturer. Kennedy proposed letting him and his team" from CHD investigate the country's MMR vaccines. In all, Kennedy used the words vaccination' and vaccine' eight times in the letter proposing his visit.
The prime minister responded with a letter in February saying he welcomed Kennedy and his team's independent health assessment of our MMR vaccines." He requested Kennedy coordinate a visit with him.
With the only caveat being that those emails need to be completely authenticated as legitimate, that's as much of a smoking gun as you could possibly want for proving that Kennedy lied to Congress in his confirmation hearings. That fact obviously won't surprise anyone, of course. Kennedy is a habitual liar. But to have it evidenced in such a clear and unambiguous way is a rarity.
And, frankly, a gift. Kennedy has to go. Any reasonable and informed person would agree with that and the vast majority of our congresspersons are, in theory, reasonable and informed. They are also political creatures and you may have noticed that all of the folks calling for Kennedy's figurative head have the letter D" next to their name.
Sen. Angela Alsobrooks (D-Md.) said Kennedy must resign or be fired immediately." Hawaii Governor Josh Green, a doctor whoresponded to Samoa's measles outbreak, also renewed his call for Kennedy to immediately resign.
Hopefully, either this reporting or a subsequent investigation will give cover to people on the other side of the aisle to join the call for Kennedy to be ousted. It probably should have been enough that Kennedy took a trip that pretty clear contributed to plenty of people getting killed, most of them children. But if it has to be his lying about it that does him in, so be it.