WASHINGTON — Calling Robert F. Kennedy Jr. a “predator” who is addicted to power, Caroline Kennedy urged the Senate in a letter Tuesday to reject the nomination of her cousin to be President Trump’s health secretary.
In a letter to senators, Caroline Kennedy, who has served as a U.S. ambassador to Australia and Japan and is the daughter of former President Kennedy, etched a damning sketch of her cousin, the latest condemnation Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has received from members of his prominent Democratic family.
Several denounced her cousin’s bid for the presidency last year. The letter, obtained by the Associated Press, was first reported by the Washington Post.
Kennedy said in the letter that her cousin’s views on vaccines are disqualifying. She offered senators personal details from their lives growing up together that she said pose an even greater concern.
She described her cousin’s basement, garage and dorm as being an epicenter for drug use, where he would also put baby chickens and mice in blenders to feed to his hawks.
“It was often a perverse scene of despair and violence,” she wrote. She also read the letter in a video recording, sharing it on social media. Attempts to reach Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for comment were not immediately successful.
He has openly talked about his heroin use, and he pleaded guilty to bringing it on an airplane in 1984.
Her cousin now “preys on the desperation of parents of sick children,” she told senators, saying that he has vaccinated his own children while discouraging others from vaccinating theirs.
She also pointed out that Kennedy plans to still profit off a lawsuit against pharmaceutical company Merck over Gardasil, its human papillomavirus vaccine that prevents cervical cancer. Last year, he made over $850,000 from the arrangement.
“In other words, he is willing to enrich himself by denying access to a vaccine that can prevent almost all forms of cervical cancer and which has been safely administered to millions of boys and girls,” she wrote. She had previously not spoken about his candidacy or nomination for secretary of Health and Human Services.
Her father was assassinated in 1963 when she was a young girl. Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s father, Robert F. Kennedy, was assassinated in 1968 during a presidential campaign event in Los Angeles.
“Unlike Bobby, I try not to speak for my father — but I am certain that he and my uncle Bobby, who gave their lives in public services, and my uncle Teddy, who devoted his Senate career to improving health care, would be disgusted,” Caroline Kennedy wrote.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will appear for a confirmation hearing before the Senate Finance Committee on Wednesday. Another hearing for his nomination will be held on Wednesday in front of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee, the panel once chaired by his and Caroline’s “Uncle Teddy,” Sen. Edward M. Kennedy Jr.
Seitz and Mascaro write for the Associated Press.