Top Democrat will investigate whether RFK Jr. lied to Congress

(CNN) — The top Democrat on the powerful Senate Finance Committee is launching an investigation into Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., alleging he lied to Congress during his 2025 confirmation hearing.

The investigation centers on what Kennedy has said about the purposes of a 2019 trip to Samoa amid concerns in the country about the safety of measles, mumps and rubella vaccines.

But in a letter informing Kennedy of his intent to launch an inquiry, Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden also issued sweeping requests for the health secretary to provide all documents related to his presidential campaign, his confirmation process and any communications between federal health officials and Children’s Health Defense, the anti-vaccine group Kennedy chaired until December 2024.

Wyden is expected to assume chairmanship of the finance committee when Democrats take majority control in January.

The investigation comes as several Democrats, including newly elected senators, have promised to launch probes and possibly impeach Kennedy next year.

Kennedy testified during his 2025 confirmation hearing that his 2019 trip — months before a measles outbreak swept the country — had “nothing to do with vaccines.” The previous year, the Samoan government paused all vaccinations following the deaths of two children who were given improperly mixed MMR vaccines.

The nurses who administered those vaccines were charged with manslaughter. The government paused vaccinations until April 2019, leading immunization rates to plummet. The measles outbreak began that September, eventually rising to 5,700 cases and 83 deaths.

Kennedy, who led Children’s Health Defense at the time, visited the island in June 2019. He had said in a 2021 blog post for the advocacy group that he went to attend an independence celebration, but also met with government officials to discuss monitoring systems to evaluate the safety of “every medical intervention or drug on overall health.”

While Kennedy has maintained that the trip was not directly related to vaccines, communications from that time suggest otherwise.

In January 2019, months before his trip, the now-health secretary explicitly asked then-Samoa Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi to study “what happened” with the MMR vaccines and whether there were broader safety issues, according to a letter obtained by The Guardian and The Associated Press that Wyden cited.

In his 2021 blog post, Kennedy also referenced vaccine discussions. He described the Samoan prime minister’s nephew, who “was diagnosed with autism following a vaccine induced fever and seizures.” Medical research has debunked the theory that vaccines induce autism. But Kennedy said the prime minister and other officials were “curious” to measure health outcomes following the “natural experiment” created by the national respite from vaccines.

It is a crime to knowingly give false testimony to Congress, though it is rarely prosecuted. This year, Republican senators led by Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul recommended that the Justice Department prosecute former National Institutes for Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci for false testimony related to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Wyden’s letter is co-signed by Maryland Sen. Angela Alsobrooks, who on November 4 posted to X: “The time is now. RFK Jr. must resign or be fired. End of discussion.”

HHS and Children’s Health Defense did not immediately respond to CNN’s requests for comment.