A leading Democratic senator is urging a criminal inquiry into US health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr after Guardian reporting suggested he gave false testimony during his Senate confirmation hearings last year.
Oregon senator Ron Wyden delivered a sharply worded rebuke, saying: “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.”
The Guardian’s report drew on letters obtained by the outlet and the Associated Press through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.
In a statement to the Guardian, Wyden said he plans to push Senate Republicans, who hold the chamber’s majority, to send a criminal referral on Kennedy to the Department of Justice. “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,” he said. Wyden is currently the top Democrat on the Senate finance committee.
The pressure escalated Thursday when American Oversight, a government watchdog organization, sent a letter to the justice department asking officials to immediately investigate whether Kennedy broke the law by making false statements to Congress.
Several other Democratic officials also responded to the new reporting by calling for Kennedy to be ousted or to resign from office.
Wyden was one of the senators who questioned Kennedy during two confirmation hearings last year about his 2019 visit to Samoa, which took place while Kennedy was leading an anti-vaccine organization. Months after that trip, a measles outbreak swept through the country, infecting thousands and killing 83 people, most of them children under the age of five.
Pressed by Wyden and Massachusetts senator Ed Markey about the purpose of the Samoa trip, Kennedy testified that the visit had “nothing to do with vaccines”. But the newly obtained correspondence appears to undercut that claim. In one letter, Kennedy told Samoa’s prime minister that he wanted to study the measles, mumps and rubella, or MMR, vaccine in the Pacific island nation, using the words “vaccine” or “vaccination” eight times.
“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, said. “But this would require the executive branch to prosecute, and Trump’s [justice department] is unlikely to do so.”
Still, attorneys with expertise in Senate procedure said that if Democrats win control of the House or Senate in November’s elections, they could use Kennedy’s statements as grounds for hearings or an impeachment inquiry, or to create other obstacles for the Trump administration.
Markey also weighed in on the new reporting, saying the records show it was false when Kennedy said his trip had “nothing to do with vaccines”.
“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,” Markey said. “He should never have been confirmed, and he cannot be trusted to run [the Department of Health and Human Services] for even one more day.”
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Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland, a member of the Senate health, education, labor and pensions committee, which oversees Kennedy’s department, repeated her call that the health secretary resign or be fired.
And Hawaii’s governor, Josh Green, a medical doctor who traveled to Samoa to help in the measles response in 2019, again called for him to step down.
“It is clear that Kennedy misled Congress about his intentions in Samoa and his stance on vaccinations during his confirmation hearings two years ago. It is time for him to immediately resign,” Green said. “He must do this for the safety and health of our country.”
The federal statute of limitations for lying to Congress is five years, meaning a new justice department under the next president in 2029 could theoretically investigate the case.
The Guardian sought comment from the Department of Health and Human Services about the Democratic officials’ calls for investigation or removal, but it did not immediately respond. In a previously issued statement it said Kennedy’s visit to Samoa “was unrelated to vaccines. Any claim or insinuation based on these letters that Secretary Kennedy lied under oath or to Congress is not only false but outright defamatory.”
Kennedy was not under oath during the two confirmation hearings. Wyden’s staff said whether he was under oath is not relevant since it is a crime to lie during a confirmation hearing either way.
