RFK Jr lied in Senate confirmation hearings, newly revealed documents indicate

Newly obtained documents indicate that the US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, lied during two congressional hearings last year, telling lawmakers who held the key to his confirmation that a 2019 visit to Samoa had “nothing to do with vaccines”. Letters obtained by the Guardian and the contradict that testimony. In one he wrote to the Samoan prime minister before the trip, Kennedy explicitly said he wanted to study the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine in the Pacific island nation.

In it, he used the words vaccine or vaccination eight times. Kennedy’s Samoa visit – just months before a measles outbreak swept through the island, killing 83 people – has become one of the most controversial events in his career. At the time, he was leading a nonprofit known for its anti-vaccine activism.

The visit was seen by critics as having emboldened anti-vaccine activists in Samoa. Beyond shedding light on the intent of Kennedy’s visit, the letter raises questions about the health secretary’s integrity and how truthful he was in testimony before Congress. During the confirmation process Kennedy also pledged to maintain vaccine policies that, once in office, he moved to change.

Knowingly giving material false testimony to Congress is a crime that carries a possible prison sentence, though it is rarely prosecuted. 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, an impeachment inquiry or create other obstacles for the Trump administration. A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said in a statement: “Secretary Kennedy’s visit to Samoa in 2019 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. The Guardian asked HHS to provide an explanation of the contradiction between Kennedy’s claim that the 2019 trip had nothing to do with vaccines, and his letter to the Samoan prime minister. It did not provide any response to that question.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment. Kennedy for years was chair and chief legal counsel of the anti-vaccine group Children’s Health Defense (CHD). The group turned its attention to Samoa in July 2018, when two young children died after being given an improperly mixed MMR vaccine.