Senators Open Inquiry Into RFK Jr.'s Testimony on a 2019 Samoa Trip
Sens. Wyden and Alsobrooks opened an inquiry into whether HHS Secretary RFK Jr. lied to the Senate about a 2019 Samoa trip. He and HHS deny it.
The facts come first below. My opinion follows in the section marked as opinion.
Two Democratic senators have opened an investigation into whether Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. lied to Congress about the reason for a 2019 trip to Samoa, the Associated Press and The Guardian reported Thursday. The inquiry follows documents published by those outlets in August that the senators say conflict with Kennedy's confirmation testimony.
Sens. Ron Wyden of Oregon and Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland announced the inquiry in a letter sent Wednesday to Children's Health Defense, the nonprofit group Kennedy previously chaired, both outlets reported. They asked the group for records related to Kennedy's Samoa travel, his 2024 presidential campaign, and his Senate confirmation process, and for communications between the group and federal officials since January 2025. The senators set a deadline of Dec. 4.
In two congressional confirmation hearings in January 2025, Kennedy told lawmakers that his visit to Samoa had "nothing to do with vaccines," The Guardian reported. The Associated Press likewise reported that Kennedy repeatedly told senators who held the key to his confirmation that the visit had "nothing to do with vaccines."
Letters obtained by the two outlets through an open-records lawsuit contradicted that account, both reported. In a Jan. 20, 2019, letter to then-Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi, written on Children's Health Defense letterhead, Kennedy used the words vaccine or vaccination eight times, the Associated Press and The Guardian reported. The Associated Press said the letter described his desire to study Samoa's use of the MMR vaccine and said his team wanted to evaluate the matter through a "detailed health informatics assessment."
Wyden, who is expected to chair the Senate Finance Committee when Democrats take control of Congress in January, and Alsobrooks, who serves on the Senate health committee, wrote, "We intend to hold Secretary Kennedy accountable for the grave harm he has caused to vulnerable children," the Associated Press and The Guardian reported. They added, "We also intend to hold him accountable for any false statements made to Congress, a crime that undermines the Senate's ability to fulfill its constitutional duties." In the same letter, obtained by The Guardian, they said they were beginning an investigation into evidence that Kennedy "unlawfully lied" to Congress "on multiple occasions."
The Department of Health and Human Services has maintained that the Samoa visit "was unrelated to vaccines," both outlets reported. In response to an Associated Press inquiry in August, the department said "any claim or insinuation based on these letters that Secretary Kennedy lied under oath or to Congress is not only false but outright defamatory." The Associated Press reported that Kennedy was not under oath during his confirmation hearing, and that knowingly giving material false testimony to Congress is a crime that can carry a prison sentence whether or not a person is under oath, though it is rarely prosecuted. Spokespeople for Children's Health Defense and HHS did not immediately respond to requests for comment Thursday, both outlets reported.
Kennedy has denied claims that the visit worsened a vaccination crisis in Samoa, The Guardian reported, saying he never gave any public statement about vaccines or discouraged Samoans from getting vaccinated. Months after the trip, measles broke out in Samoa. The Associated Press and The Guardian reported that the outbreak killed 83 people, mostly children under 5. Critics, including Samoan officials, have said Kennedy's presence emboldened anti-vaccine activists; public health experts have said their efforts to address the outbreak were hampered by such activists, some of whom they claim were emboldened by the visit, the Associated Press reported.
The Guardian reported that the senators' letter is not a subpoena, but that a committee or chair could issue subpoenas later if the group does not cooperate. The new inquiry is among investigations planned into the Trump administration after Democrats won majorities in last week's midterms, the Associated Press reported. The Senate has also been considering other lame-duck business, including a defense spending request Dock Line reported: Trump Urges Senate Republicans to Pass $350 Billion Defense Bill.
Opinion:
An investigation is not a verdict. A letter asking for records is not a conviction. If a 2019 letter and later Senate testimony do not match, the public is owed a straight answer, not a slogan from either party.
Congress has a duty to find out whether a Cabinet secretary told the truth when he asked for the job. That duty does not disappear because the midterms changed hands, and it does not turn an unanswered letter into proof. Kennedy's denial should be reported and tested against the documents, not shouted down and not waved away.
Eighty-three deaths, most of them young children, are not a talking point. They are a grave fact. Parents deserve the truth about disease, about vaccines, and about what officials told the Senate. If the testimony was false, that is serious. If it was not, the secretary should be able to show it. Either way, the country is not served by hiding the record or by treating a probe as a trophy.
