A senior Democratic senator has launched an investigation into evidence that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “illegally lied” during his 2025 confirmation hearings to become US health secretary, citing a Guardian report.
Oregon’s Ron Wyden, the new chairman of the powerful Senate Finance Committee, is seeking detailed records from Children’s Health Defense (CHD), the nonprofit anti-vaccine group that Kennedy used as a vehicle to fuel his political rise, including all documents related to a trip Kennedy took to Samoa in 2019.
“We are opening an investigation into evidence that Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. unlawfully lied to Congress on multiple occasions,” Wyden said in a letter to the group sent Wednesday and obtained by the Guardian. The letter was also signed by Angela Alsobrooks, Democratic senator from Maryland.
In the letter, both lawmakers cite a Guardian article that found Kennedy lied about why he visited Samoa in 2019, a trip that took place just months before a measles outbreak killed 83 people in the Pacific island nation, most of them children under the age of five.
The trip, made by Kennedy as president and chief legal adviser of the CHD, became one of the most criticized events of his career before entering government. Critics, including Samoan officials, said Kennedy’s presence had emboldened anti-vaccine activists in Samoa, worsening the vaccination crisis. Kennedy denied the allegations, saying he never made a public statement about vaccines or discouraged Samoans from getting vaccinated.
“We are deeply concerned about the tactics Kennedy used – before and during his tenure as secretary – to prevent children from receiving life-saving vaccines,” the two Democratic senators wrote. “In Samoa and the United States, unvaccinated children died tragically and preventably during measles outbreaks. We intend to hold Secretary Kennedy accountable for the serious harm he caused to vulnerable children. We also intend to hold him accountable for any false statements made to Congress, a crime that undermines the ability of the Senate to carry out its constitutional functions.”
During two congressional confirmation hearings in January 2025, Kennedy told lawmakers who held the key to his confirmation that his visit to Samoa had “nothing to do with vaccines.”
But letters obtained by the Guardian and the Associated Press in a public lawsuit brought by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press contradicted that testimony. In a letter he wrote to the Samoan prime minister in January 2019 before the trip, Kennedy explicitly stated that he wanted to study the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine in the Pacific island country. In this document, he used the words “vaccine” or “vaccination” eight times.
The Prime Minister responded a month later, saying Samoa could benefit from the CHD’s evaluation of the MMR vaccine and inviting them to come.
Children’s Health Defense did not respond to requests for comment, and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) did not immediately comment.
HHS previously said, in response to Guardian reporting on Kennedy’s Senate testimony, that his visit to Samoa was “not related to vaccines. Any assertion or insinuation based on these letters that Secretary Kennedy lied under oath or to Congress is not only false but downright defamatory.” He did not respond to questions about why his testimony contradicted what he said in his letter to the Samoan prime minister.
By requesting documents from the CHD, Wyden is targeting the heart of Kennedy’s political machine. Since taking office, Kennedy has hired former CHD employees, including Lyn Redwood, a former CHD president who early on began outreach on its behalf in Samoa. Redwood is now an HHS employee, reportedly working on vaccine safety. Kennedy’s closest adviser at HHS, Stefanie Spear, ran the CHD newsletter before joining his 2024 presidential campaign.
With Kennedy now in government, CHD and its leaders often act as his most vocal defenders, praising his work and explaining his decisions in their video podcasts, articles and on social media. Kennedy headlined the CHD’s annual conference in September, where he made false and misleading statements about vaccine safety.
The Senate letter requested all records relating to any travel to Samoa by Kennedy or other CHD employees or associates and any communications with Samoan government officials. He also requested documents relating to Kennedy’s presidential campaign and his Senate confirmation process.
Additionally, the senators requested documents relating to Kennedy’s speech at the CHD’s September convention and all communications between the CHD and federal government officials since January 20, 2025.
CHD has a deadline of December 4.
On election night, after the polls closed and after it became clear that Democrats would take the majority of Senate seats, Wyden posted a blunt message on social media about accountability. “Subpoenas,” he wrote in a one-word message. Alsobrooks, a member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, has repeatedly called on Kennedy to resign or be fired.
The letter does not carry the legal force of a subpoena. But it would be a good idea to treat such a letter seriously, said Tim Stretton of the Project on Government Oversight, a nonpartisan watchdog group in Washington.
“It’s not wise to ignore it,” Stretton said. “It’s really in their interest now to cooperate in a good faith effort.”
If they don’t, he said, the committee or chair could issue subpoenas to demand the information sought.
Knowingly giving false testimony to Congress is a crime punishable by prison time, although it is rarely prosecuted.
Wyden previously called for a criminal investigation into Kennedy’s testimony regarding his trip to Samoa. He said in August that he would pressure his Republican colleagues to refer Kennedy to the Justice Department for a criminal investigation. He then declared that “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 putting American families at risk.”
Several other Democrats have called for Kennedy to resign or be removed from office. Bernie Sanders, the new chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, has declared himself open to impeachment. And new Senator Annie Andrews, a pediatrician from South Carolina, has been calling for Kennedy’s impeachment since her campaign.
Legal experts said the Trump Justice Department was unlikely to pursue charges, but said Kennedy’s statements could serve as grounds for hearings, an impeachment inquiry or create other obstacles for the Trump administration.
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