Wyden opens inquiry into whether RFK Jr lied to Congress over Samoa trip

Letter demands records from Kennedy’s anti-vaccine group, setting December deadline

Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, the incoming chair of the Senate finance committee, has opened an investigation into evidence that Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. unlawfully lied to Congress during his 2025 confirmation hearings. “We are beginning an investigation into evidence that Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F Kennedy, Jr unlawfully lied to Congress on multiple occasions,” Wyden said in a letter sent Wednesday to Children’s Health Defense and obtained by the Guardian.

The letter cites Guardian reporting that indicated Kennedy misrepresented his reasons for traveling to Samoa in 2019 — a trip that came months before a measles outbreak killed 83 people in the Pacific island nation, mostly children under age five. It was co-signed by Senator Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland.

The records demand targets Children’s Health Defense (CHD), the non-profit anti-vaccine group Kennedy served as chair and chief legal counsel and used as a vehicle for his political rise. The letter asks for all documents related to any travel to Samoa by Kennedy or other CHD employees and associates, and any communications with Samoan government officials. It also seeks records related to Kennedy’s presidential campaign and his Senate confirmation process, records related to his speech to CHD’s September convention, and all communications between CHD and federal government officials since 20 January 2025. The group has until 4 December to respond.

At the center of the inquiry is a contradiction between Kennedy’s testimony and his own correspondence. In two congressional confirmation hearings in January 2025, Kennedy told lawmakers his visit to Samoa had “nothing to do with vaccines”. Letters obtained by the Guardian and the Associated Press through an open records lawsuit brought by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press contradicted that account. In one, written to Samoa’s prime minister, Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi, in January 2019 before the trip, Kennedy said he wanted to study the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine in the Pacific island nation, using the words “vaccine” or “vaccination” eight times.

Malielegaoi responded a month later, writing that Samoa could benefit from CHD’s assessment of MMR vaccines and inviting Kennedy to come.

The trip became one of the most criticized events of Kennedy’s career before he entered government. Critics, including Samoan officials, have said Kennedy’s presence emboldened anti-vaccine activists in Samoa and worsened a vaccination crisis. Kennedy has denied the allegations, saying he never gave any public statement about vaccines or discouraged Samoans from getting vaccinated.

“We are deeply concerned by the tactics Kennedy has used – both before and during his tenure as secretary – to stand in the way of children receiving life-saving vaccinations,” the two senators wrote. “In Samoa and in the United States, unvaccinated children have died tragic and preventable deaths during measles outbreaks. We intend to hold Secretary Kennedy accountable for the grave harm he has caused to vulnerable children. 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.”

Children’s Health Defense did not respond to requests for comment, and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) did not immediately comment. In response to the Guardian’s earlier reporting on Kennedy’s Senate testimony, HHS said the 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.” The department has not answered questions about why Kennedy’s testimony contradicted what he wrote to the Samoan prime minister.

The records demand reaches into Kennedy’s political operation. Since taking office, Kennedy has hired former CHD employees, including Lyn Redwood, a former CHD president who made early outreach on his behalf to Samoa and is now an HHS employee, reportedly working on vaccine safety. Stefanie Spear, Kennedy’s closest adviser at HHS, ran CHD’s newsletter before joining his 2024 presidential campaign. With Kennedy in government, CHD and its leaders have often acted as his most vociferous defenders, praising his work and explaining his decisions on video podcasts, in articles and on social media. Kennedy headlined CHD’s annual conference in September, where he made false and misleading claims about the safety of vaccines, according to the Guardian.

The letter does not carry the legal force of a subpoena, but it should be taken 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 CHD does not, he said, the committee or its chair could issue subpoenas to demand the information.

Wyden foreshadowed the investigation on election night, posting a single word on social media after polls closed and it became clear Democrats would take a majority of Senate seats: “Subpoenas.” Knowingly giving material false testimony to Congress is a crime that carries a possible prison sentence, though it is rarely prosecuted. Wyden said in August that he would press Republican colleagues to issue a criminal referral of Kennedy to the Department of Justice, saying then 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 endangering American families”.

Alsobrooks, a member of the Senate committee on health, education, labor and pensions, has repeatedly called on Kennedy to resign or be fired. Bernie Sanders, the incoming chair of that committee, has said he is open to impeachment, and incoming senator Annie Andrews, a pediatrician from South Carolina, has called for Kennedy’s impeachment since her campaign. Legal experts have said it is unlikely the Justice Department under Trump would prosecute Kennedy, but have said his statements could be used as grounds for hearings, an impeachment inquiry or to create other obstacles for the Trump administration.